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TUMBLEWEED 


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She gazed in awed admiration into the mirror 





TUMBLEWEED 


By 

ALICE M. COLTER 

»> 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

ARCHIE GUNN / 


ra 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright 1916 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 




I I * 1 


A 

** 


SEP 1219 ) 6 -'' 


press or 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
BROOKLYN, N. Y. 


©CU438344*-, 







To L. S. H. 

The Truest Wind Person I Know 
I Gratefully Inscribe 
This Book 


# 



CONTENTS 


PART ONE 

Wind 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Wind Child 3 

II The Stranger-Boy 13 

III When the Prince Came 29 

PART TWO 

Fire 

IV Being Herself 47 

V The Pagan 70 

VI The Fairy Gifts 98 

VII Life With a Capital L 123 

VIII The Operetta 141 

IX In Love With Love 148 

X Only After Death 159 

XI Purple Blossoms 177 

XII To the End of the World 199 

PART THREE 

Wind 

XIII The Little Yellow Book 225 

XIV Sweetheart 238 

XV Gipsying .......... 259 

















TUMBLEWEED 






































9 


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<1 



























* 


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WIND 


Jasper Petulengro — “There’s night and 
day, brother, both sweet things ; sun, moon, 
and \ stars, brother, all sweet things ; there’s 
likewise a wind on the heath . Life is very 
sweet, brother; who would wish to die?” 

“Lavengro.” 



TUMBLEWEED 


CHAPTER I 

THE WIND CHILD 

The wind blew. The rushes at the 
water’s edge bent low as it passed but, like 
servile courtiers behind their monarch’s 
back, they straightened and leaned toward 
one another whispering. Here and there a 
flag lily, proudly purple, held its head 
erect though the force of the wind made 
it shiver along all its green length. The 
silver birches in their white waistcoats 
bowed gracefully but not too low lest their 
dignity be compromised. 

The man who lay on the bank with his 
hands clasped under his head was un- 
aware of the royal drama that silently 
filled the woodland. His eyes were on the 
3 


4 


TUMBLEWEED 


white clouds that were chasing across the 
sky to escape the dust with which the wind 
was powdering their curled edges. 

The royal drama paused for a moment ; 
the orchestra began. Startled, the man 
raised himself on one elbow and looked 
toward the woods from which the weird 
music came. 

“The wind bloweth 
Where it listeth ; 

No man knoweth 
Whence it cometh, 

Whither it goeth.” 

High and clear the little verse came 
through the woods with a sweet imper- 
sonality in the voice as if an elf sang. 

Justifying the unknown singer of its 
independence the wind burst through the 
thicket above the bank where the man lay. 
In the sudden rush that almost took his 
breath, he was scarcely aware for a mo- 
ment that he was gazing at the figure of a 
little girl. He watched her in silence. 
She stood poised at the top of the little 


THE WIND CHILD 


5 


hill, the straight lengths of her green 
dress blown from her slender body, her 
short light hair ruffled, the rose of the 
wind in her cheeks. As the breeze struck 
her again she swayed and, to the man 
watching the strange blue fire kindle in 
her eyes, it seemed that she was about to 
be carried like a leaf into the air. 

“The wind bloweth 
Where it listeth,” 

the chant began again. 

The man sat up suddenly, fearing to in- 
terrupt this strange ceremony, yet unwill- 
ing to let his elfin visitor be borne away 
on the wings of the wind. 

The child looked at him quietly. When 
she had finished her song she said, “Did 
he knock you down?” 

The man was surprised. “Who?” he 
asked. 

“My father.” 

Carman was puzzled. His voice was 
very gentle as he answered, though his 
little visitor did not seem to require such 


6 


TUMBLEWEED 


careful handling as the youngsters of 
white frocks, blue ribbons and yellow 
curls that he knew. 

“No one knocked me down,” he said; 
“I just lay down because I wanted to. 
[But who is your father and who are you ?” 

With a true sense of feminine impor- 
tance the child answered his latter ques- 
tion first. 

“I am Tumbleweed,” she said, “and 
the wind is my father.” There was a 
thrill in her voice when she said “the 
wind” that stirred Carman strangely. 
He had an odd sense of having been 
momentarily made aware of a great and 
pervasive personality. The moment pass- 
ed and left him vaguely uncomfortable. 

“Oh, come now,” he said a trifle im- 
patiently, for he hated anything that was 
not at once evident to his understanding ; 
“you must have a real name and a real 
father. Why, every little girl has a real 
father.” 

Tumbleweed drew herself up proudly. 
The impatience in his voice had brought 



Startled, the man raised himself on one elbow 





































. 





THE WIND CHILD 


7 


fire to her cheeks. Unwilling to be out- 
done by “ever y little girl” she said dis- 
dainfully : “ It is stingy and mean to havq 
only one father. I have a great many 
fathers. I have a Father-in-IIeaven who 
is my father when mother tells me not to 
forget. And they say that God is my 
father on Sundays. But on my own days 
the wind is my father and I love him 
best.” She raised one hot little cheek to 
the breeze that came fresh and sweet 
through the thicket. 

There was something so reverential in 
her gesture, something so suggestive of 
Jeanne d’Arc listening to the voices that, 
instinctively, Carman took off his cap be- 
fore it. A moment later he grinned sheep- 
ishly at the action as Tumbleweed sprang 
eagerly toward him. 

“Oh, you’re a Wind Man, you’re a 
Wind Man,” she cried happily. “Why 
didn’t you tell me before that you knew 
my Father Wind ?” 

Carman was puzzled, but he was learn- 
ing diplomacy* 


8 


TUMBLEWEED 


“I’m not sure just what a Wind Man 
is,” he confessed. “Won’t you tell me? 
Perhaps I am.” 

Tumbleweed sat down. There was in- 
finite compassion on her small face, com- 
passion mixed with the joy of attainment. 
Like a priest about to communicate the 
secret of all happiness, she began. 

“You must be either a Wind Person or 
a Not.” No epithet of malignity could 
have been so scornful as Tumbleweed’s 
term of negation. Carman felt that to be 
a Not was to lose the kingdom of Heaven 
forever. 

“But how can I tell?” he begged. 
“Look at me and see if I’m a Wind Per- 
son or a Not.” 

Tumbleweed watched him gravely for 
a moment. Then she shook her head. “I 
can’t tell,” she said half petulantly. It 
was one of the annoyances of her life that 
she had to spend so much time discovering 
who were “Nots.” If only they were 
made to wear uniforms ! 


THE WIND CHILD 


9 


“But if you can’t tell by looking at me 
bow can you tell?” Carman persisted,; 
amused. 

Tumbleweed was frankly puzzled. “I 
don’t know,” sbe admitted; “if you were 
little I could tell by tbe things you liked 
to play. But grown-ups are mostly all 
Nots. You ought to know yourself,” sbe 
added with a trace of accusation in her 
voice. 

Carman bad a feeling that be was being 
judged and found wanting. An absurd 
desire to have this strange little girl ap- 
praise him as a Wind Person seized him. 
He sat and watched tbe wind-ruled woods. 

Tbe child sprang to her feet. “I know,” 
she cried happily, “if you are a Wind 
Person you know my Father Wind. Do 
you see him there by tbe water?” 

Carman shifted uneasily. His answer, 
when it came, was a surprise even to him- 
self. “I see the rushes bowing down and 
the trees bending as he passes,” he said, 
“but I do not see him.” Then he added 


10 


TUMBLEWEED 


to himself— “I surely; must bq losing my 
wits.” 

Tumbleweed was watching him 
strangely; she seemed to feel some lack of 
understanding in his words. ‘ 6 Everybody 
has to be that much of a Wind Person 
whether they want to or not,” she said dis- 
dainfully, ‘ 6 even the reeds that say bad 
things about him when he is gone. But,” 
her voice was growing more and more 
troubled, even a little angry as she saw 
how hard it was to make him understand 
— ‘but,” she began again, “you don’t 
have to see my Eather Wind with your 
eyes; you — you feel him here” — with her 
hand on her heart — “like you do your 
mother when you’re all alone at night.” 

Carman saw her irritation and watched 
her, half-amused. “What was the song 
you were singing when you came?” he 
asked. 

The elfin radiance flashed like a flame 
through Tumbleweed’s figure again and 
she sprang to her feet. “It’s a song about 
my father,” she said, “that the minister 


THE WIND CHILD 


11 


read last week. It’s my song that I sing 
to Mm when I’m glad. But,” a fine scorn 
was growing on her face, “the Nots sing 
a silly song. They say every few min- 
utes that the nightie had a remus. Do 
you know what a remus is — and how 
could the nightie have one?” 

Carman had to confess that he did not 
know what a remus was. He made no 
attempt to hide his laughter when she had 
finally made him understand the song to 
which she alluded by humming the music 
of Venite Adoremus. 

She was startled by his laughter and 
uncertain as to the cause of it. She won- 
dered if a remus was something the 
nightie ought not to have. Suddenly she 
felt the same wild resentment of his 
laughter that she always felt when she 
saw the reeds gossiping about the wind 
behind his back. A storm swept through 
her. She stamped her foot angrily. 

“You’re a Not,” she cried, “and my 
father will blow you all down and away.” 


12 


TUMBLEWEED 


She had disappeared through the 
thicket before Carman could stop her. He 
felt ill at ease. 6 6 I wonder if I am a Not, ’ 9 
he said musingly to himself as he lay and 
watched all the stir of the woods, that stir 
of which he had never thought till Tum- 
bleweed came. His mind, unused to fan- 
tasy, stretched out toward this new realm 
half fearfully like a child who reaches for 
a strange new toy. He dreamed a little 
confusedly of good and evil. Carmen was 
used to being on the winning side. He had 
never before had a suspicion that he might 
be a Hot. The child’s words had come 
upon him like some strange judgment. 
His sense of discomfort lessened as the 
wind brought to him from far away 
fragments of a chant : 

“The wind bloweth 

Where listeth ; 

Ho knoweth 

.cometh, 

goeth.” 


CHAPTER II 


THE STRANGER-BOY 

Tumbleweed edged closer and closer 
to her mother along the shiny; wooden 
bench in the waiting-room. She was very; 
tired for the train that was to bring her 
small cousins to visit her was late. Dur- 
ing the hour she and her mother had been 
waiting she had exhausted the meager 
possibilities for amusement offered by the 
stove, the benches, the local map, and even 
the fascinating * 6 click — - click — click, 
click ” of the telegraph instrument in the 
office. 

Mrs. .Warner looked up from her maga- 
zine in surprise as Tumbleweed almost 
threw herself into her lap. A worried 
look crossed her face for a moment as she 
noticed the child’s flushed face. 

13 


14 


TUMBLEWEED 


“What is it, dear?” she asked gently. 

“1 feel the dark — coming,” Tumble- 
weed answered with that soft prolonga- 
tion of the “a” which hints at unknown 
terrors. The note of breathless mystery 
in her yoice thrilled through the lighted 
waiting-room. 

A woman on the next bench stirred un- 
easily and turned to look questioningly at 
the little girl. Tumbleweed’s voice had 
that peculiar lilt that personifies, makes 
momentous with hidden meaning, all of 
which it speaks. The woman turned away 
with a shrug. She had half expected to 
see a prophet — instead she had seen only 
a little girl with her face hidden in her 
mother’s mu if. 

Mrs. Warner rose. 

“Come,” she said; “let’s go out on to 
the platform to wait. Mother’s girl 
mustn’t be a coward. We’ll go out into 
the dark.” 

To her surprise Tumbleweed followed 
her willingly. As she bent to fasten the 


THE STRANGER-BOY 


13 


little girl’s coat she looked half wistfully] 
into the blue eyes. < ‘Tell mother, why you 
are afraid, dear,” she said. 

“I’m not afraid now,” Tumbleweed 
answered gravely. “It was just in there 
where the lights were — and I couldn’t see 
the dark — I could only feel it — coming.” 
Tumbleweed’s words were faltering and 
Mrs. Warner was silent, awaiting the sud- 
den burst of confidence with which her 
little daughter was prone to explain her- 
self. A train rumbled away into the dis- 
tance. The snow-decked country stretched 
out whitely on all sides, till it merged into 
darkness. Tumbleweed was silent for a 
moment, watching. Then, as the breeze 
reached her, she lifted her face, exulting 
in the joy of spontaneous expression. 

“It’s like my cold bath, mother,” she 
said. “When I hear the water running in 
bed and think about it I’m afraid, but 
when it’s closed all over me, like the dark, 
I love it. Mother, let’s stay in the darkest 
place, shan ’t we ? I ’m not afraid. ’ ’ 


16 


TUMBLEWEED 


The swift lifting of Tumbleweed’s 
face made Mrs. Warner catch her breath. 
She knew the ritual significance of the 
characteristic little gesture. What was 
there about this little daughter of hers 
that made people suddenly realize the 
bonds in which they lived? Was it the 
trick words had of growing suddenly into 
symbolism and parable on Tumbleweed’s 
lips ? The mother had that odd sense that 
comes now and then to every close ob- 
server of children, the sense of being not 
the teacher but the taught. Would Tumble- 
weed always choose the darkest place, she 
wondered — above all, would she always be 
sure of — the other presence ? Mrs. 
Warner hesitated to name it, even to her- 
self. Like her little daughter, she was 
very sure of its existence. She smiled as 
she watched Tumbleweed and the station- 
collie chase each other up and down the 
platform. The next moment she sighed as 
she remembered her little daughter’s su- 
preme faith in her naive classifications of 


THE STRANGER-BOY 


17 


the world. It seemed to her no such 
simple matter as it seemed to Tumble- 
weed. How was she ever to bring up this 
little girl of hers — alone ? 

The approach of the train cut short the 
child’s frolic and the mother’s reflections. 
In a moment Aunt Ellen, with Julie and 
Baby Ted, had descended on them in the 
midst of cases and crowds. And with them 
was Billy, the stranger-boy whom one was 
to call cousin, forever and ever, just as if 
he belonged. 

Billy was the first directly to address 
Tumbleweed when he spied her from 
where she had taken refuge behind her 
mother. It is a strange and awesome ex- 
perience to meet three new children : lions 
and tigers could be no more terrifying. 
Besides, Tumbleweed was a little jealous 
of Billy. Billy had achieved a father. She 
wondered how a little girl could get a 
father when all her life people had an- 
swered her question just one way: “Your 
father’s in Heaven, dear.” A Father-in- 


18 


TUMBLEWEED. 


Heaven really was a distinction in school 
• — still the other little girls said: “Our- 
Eather-which-art-in-Heaven, ’ ’ and then 
went home to real fathers. Tumble- 
weed’s Eather-in-Heaven was — was — • 
well — far away — not tickly whiskered like 
Uncle Joe. But then — Billy hadn’t had a 
mother either. Perhaps you had to have 
one! 

With characteristic boyish directness 
Billy came straight to the point. 

“What’s your name — your real one, not 
just cousin?” 

After a moment’s hesitation he had his 
answer. 

“Tumbleweed.” 

Billy whistled — his latest achievement. 

‘ 4 Tumbleweed, ’ ’ he repeated ; 6 1 that ’s 
no name !” Billy had a genius for contra- 
diction. Then, as the little girl only con- 
tinued to stare at him with large angry 
eyes, he put his hands in his pockets and 
announced coolly: “I’m goin’ to call you 


THE STRANGER-BOY 


19 


‘Wee’ because you are little and so are 
Julie and Baby Ted.” 

At the sound of his name Baby Ted 
looked up from the serious business of 
swinging his Teddy Bear. 

“Callth — thu — Wee,” he mocked with 
an adorable little smile, — the mischief 
dancing in his eyes. Baby Ted was very 
lazy about pronouncing words correctly; 
in his little life he had found small need 
for words. The possessor of such a smile 
has an instinctive and universal language. 

With Baby Ted’s smile Tumbleweed’s 
anger passed. But she knew with puzzling 
certainty that she must not speak of her 
Father Wind before Billy. He might be 
stuck-up on account of having Uncle Joe. 
As they walked through the darkness the 
exciting sense of having been mastered 
left her somewhat. With a tired little 
movement she lifted her head. But she 
flushed when she felt Billy’s eyes upon 
her and refused to answer when he asked 


20 


tumbleweed; 


her what she was doing. As she watched 
Billy she had a return of the sensation she 
had felt at the station. She could not have 
told what it was she felt coming — but it 
had all the discomfort of the unknown. 

The wind seemed to be hunting for 
something as it made its way around the 
house, now raising its voice in almost ar- 
ticulate questioning, then sinking to a 
scarcely perceptible call. Tumbleweed 
shook her head and shrank farther back 
into the corner where she was hiding. The 
wind, with true sportsmanlike spirit, 
passed as if the little figure were invisible. 

Tumbleweed’s “Cousin Billy” was it, 
and Billy was impatient. His searching 
figure was plainly visible from the corner 
where Tumbleweed crouched breathless. 
But in the days since Billy had come 
Tumbleweed had grown used to being 
breathless. People always were breath- 
less where Billy was concerned. 

Tumbleweed stood up with a shiver 


THE STRANGER-BOY 


21 


of delight as Billy’s “ 6 King’s Ex.’ for 
Wee” reached her. She ran quickly to 
the big flag-pole on the rise of ground in 
front of the house where the other chil- 
dren were gathered. Their shadows, sharp 
and black on the snow, attracted her atten- 
tion. 

“Oh, let’s play the shadow-tag game,” 
she called; “that’s the most fun!” 

“No, it isn’t.” Billy contradicted from 
force of habit, then, curiosity overcoming 
him, he added : i i What is it ? ” 

Tumbleweed regarded him uncertainly 
for a moment. “It’s partly a think- 
game,” she confessed; “so maybe you 
wouldn’t like it. It’s just tag, that’s all, 
only instead of touching a person you try 
to step on his shadow.” 

The swift-moving shadows darted back 
and forth as the children ran ; the excite- 
ment and the mystery of the game grew 
on them. Tumbleweed and Billy tried 
to outrun their shadows, to capture them 
by sudden feints and turns, to make them 


22 


tumbleweed; 


grow larger and smaller at will. Tumble- 
weed bad almost forgotten that they were 
playing tag. She had paused, in fasci- 
nated wonder, to watch Julie’s shadow, 
for J ulie had been to dancing school and 
was bowing and curtsying for the joy of 
watching the graceful black shadow imi- 
tate her. 

“Oh, Julie, teach me,” Tumbleweed 
begged, stretching out her arms. She did 
not notice Billy creeping up behind her 
till his shadow fell across hers. Then she 
made one w r ild leap to escape, but the boy’s 
sturdy boots were pounding the darkened 
snow where her shadow lay. 

As if the reinforced heels had been 
stamping her own little body into the 
ground Tumbleweed cried out. 

“Oh, Billy, you naughty, naughty bad 
boy. You’re a wicked, wicked Not and I 
hate you! You’ve spoiled my beautiful, 
beautiful shadow so she can never dance 
again like Julie’s. She’s all dead!” 
Tumbleweed dropped on her knees be- 


,THE stranger-boy; 


23 


side tlie trampled snow, crying. Tlie other 
children stood embarrassed for a moment 
before her sudden outburst. 

Swift-piling winter clouds blotted out 
the sun. Billy thrust his hands into his 
pockets and gave a low whistle to show his 
unconcern. A startled look crossed Julie’s 
face. 

“.Why, my shadow’s gone, too,” she 
said, “and so are Billy’s and Baby Ted’s.” 

“Of course,” Tumbleweed answered 
simply — “they’ve gone to carry my poor 
little hurt shadow to Shadow Land. My 
little shadow is dead,” Tumbleweed re- 
peated. She was beginning to enjoy the 
novel situation. The idea of death has 
always a curious attraction for childhood. 

“Let’s bury her,” Julie suggested. 

Glad of any excuse to burrow in the soft 
snow, they piled armful after armful over 
the trampled spot where Tumbleweed’s 
shadow had laid down its life. But Billy 
watched from a distance, his curious eyes 
on Tumbleweed’s changeful face. 


24 


TUMBLEWEED. 


When Julie and Ted were on the far 
side of the yard he followed her up the 
ladder to the little tree platform where 
she was pulling dead leaves from the 
branches to serve as flowers for the grave. 

“Why did you call me a Not, Wee ; what 
did you mean?” he asked coaxingly. 
“You have got a secret, I know you have. 
Come on, tell me.” 

Tumbleweed set her lips stubbornly. 

“I know something I won’t tell,” she 
began, then a little “Oh” escaped her, for 
Billy had backed down to the ground and 
with a swift movement taken the ladder 
away. She was a prisoner in the tree. 

He danced merrily around the trunk. 
“Tell me your secret and I’ll let you down, 
Wee,” he called. “You can’t come down 
till you do.” 

Tumbleweed winked back the angry 
tears. 

“I’ll never, never tell if I freeze and 
starve,” she called — “and you’re just a 
great big, a great big billy.” She was 


THE STRANGER-BO^ 


25 


trying to say ‘ ‘ bully. ’ 9 Then she sat down 
and swung her feet with rhythmic and 
maddening disregard of the leading ques- 
tions from below. 

.Very soon she was left alone. It was 
cold in the tree. Tumbleweed’s convic- 
tion as to the necessity of keeping her 
secret from Billy was stronger than ever. 
Besides she could never have made him 
understand this Father Wind of hers — 
this father who had come to her to take 
the place of her Eather-in-Heaven. She 
didn’t understand it herself. But, clear- 
ly, something must be done; she was 
cramped and cold and she couldn’t live in 
the tree. 

Suddenly she leaned out from the bare 
branches. 

“ Billy, oh, Billy,” she called softly. 

He came reluctantly. The western sky 
was glowing with the pink and lavender of 
a clouded mid-winter sunset. Tumble- 
weed pointed to it. 

“Look!” she whispered. 


26 


tumbleweed; 


Billy turned quickly toward the radiant 
West, gave one long stare, then looked up 
at his little prisoner. 

“I don’t see anything but the sun and 
the trees, Wee,” he said. Erom the dis- 
appointment in his voice it was evident 
that he had expected at least a giraffe or 
a giant. “You’re a funny kid,” he added, 
as he looked curiously at her rapt face. 

“I’m not a funny kid,” Tumbleweed 
flashed back. “But you’re just a great 
stupid boy, not to know what’s happening 
when the sky is pink like that. Of course, 
if you don’t w r ant to hear the secret — ” 
Tumbleweed paused with a fascinating 
hint of moreness in her voice. She 
watched him craftily, her heart beating 
very fast. If her little ruse should fail — . 
But Julie came to her rescue. 

“What’s happening, Wee; please tell 
us, ’ ’ she begged. “ Is it a story ? ’ ’ 
Tumbleweed looked at Billy who was 
stealing another curious glance at the sky. 


THE STRANGER-BOY 


27 


6 1 When you bring tbe ladder and let me 
put both feet on it I’ll tell you,” she 
promised. 

The ladder was brought but Billy’s 
stern young arm forbade her descent. As 
Tumbleweed hesitated half-way down, 
Julie stretched a coaxing red mitten to- 
ward her. Tumbleweed, as though giv- 
ing her secret one farewell hug before 
she let it go, paused, then she said 
grandly: 

“ When the sky’s pink it is Santa Claus 
makin’ Christmas candy.” 

Billy was obviously disappointed but 
Julie and Baby Ted, even Tumbleweed 
herself, watched the glowing sky with the 
delicious faith and wonder of childhood in 
their upturned faces. Baby Ted broke the 
silence. 

“Wanth thome tandy now,” he said. 

Tumbleweed smiled with the quaint 
maternity of a very little girl. 

“Not till Christmas, Baby Ted,” she 


28 


TUMBLEWEED 


said, “then we’ll have lots and lots of pink 
candy and a beautiful shiny tree.” 

Later, she crept out of bed and leaned 
out of the window in her little white 
nightie. She looked very uncomfortable, 
like a culprit about to confess. 

“I just wanted to say,” she remarked 
impersonally, with downcast eyes, “that 
I didn’t tell Billy the wind secret. I just 
told him part of a wind thought.” Then, 
with a deep sigh, she snuggled back to bed. 
Confession is undoubtedly good for the 
soul, but the stain of one’s first compro- 
mise is not to be lightly wiped away with 
mere words. 


CHAPTER III 


IHEN THE PRINCE CAME 

Tumbleweed looked wearily around 
the Christmas dinner table. Her mother 
was talking, and it would never do to in- 
terrupt her to ask to be excused. The 
little girl waited several moments but no 
pause came, so she slipped from her chair 
and walked quietly into the adjoining 
Christmas-tree room. 

As she pushed aside the hangings, 
Tumbleweed closed her eyes and wrinkled 
her nose. Then, smiling broadly, with 
little outstretched, groping hands, she 
made her way across the room to the 
tree, drawn by the faint delicious odor of 
balsam which every forest haunter loves. 

The sheer, barbaric splendor of its silver 
and red and green and gold made her 
29 


30 


TUMBLEWEED 


heave a little blissful sigh as she laid half- 
reverent fingers on a cone-laden bough. 

“Beautifullest wonder,” she said soft- 
ly ; “I felt you calling me, so I came.” 

Her devouring eyes swept its whole gor- 
geous height again. 

“Don’t shine so — so hard — ” she 
begged with a little catch in her voice. 
“You, you 'prick me; you make me feel 
needly in my heart.” 

She turned quickly, on the defensive, as 
she heard footsteps behind her. But 
it was only Baby Ted. He had followed 
her, unnoticed, from the table. She took 
the little trusting hand he held out and led 
him close to the tree. In a moment he was 
pointing excitedly at the candles with 
their half-burned wicks. 

“ Yight gee-gees, Wee,” he begged. 

' Tumbleweed pretended not to under- 
stand. She had already adopted that de- 
ceitful, grown-up habit of extricating her- 
self from an equivocal situation. She 
knew perfectly well that “yight gee-gees” 


WHEN THE PRINCE CAME 31 


meant 1 c light the glitters. ’ 9 Baby Ted had 
immediately adopted her baby name for: 
the candles. 

Tumbleweed closed her eyes to shut 
out the sight of his little pleading face. 
But temptation has more than one avenue 
of approach, and, failing of the direct 
means, invariably makes use of the subtler 
material of the brain. Tumbleweed’s 
lids could not shut out the memory of the 
breathless loveliness of the Christmas tree 
shimmering in candle-light as she had seen 
it that morning. A moment later she was 
touching each half-burned wick into 
flame. 

The shining beauty of it held Tumble- 
weed enthralled. But Baby Ted had 
spied the long strings of pink candy with 
which the tree was festooned. By some 
swift train of association he remembered 
Tumbleweed’s words of the sunset and, 
concluding this was the candy of which 
she had spoken, he reached an eager little 
hand for it. 


32 


TUMBLEWEED 


“Santy Tlaus tandy — tome,” lie said, 
impatiently jerking the festooned string. 

Tumbleweed glanced uncomfortably at 
the tree. She wished Ted had not men- 
tioned her traitorous sharing of the secret 
before this messenger from the sun- and 
wind-ruled forest. Then, glancing at the 
baby, she laughed with strange excitement 
in her voice. The moment of her penance 
was upon her. 

Later, when the smell of burning cloth 
brought the frightened grown-ups from 
the dinner table, Baby Ted, scorched but 
happy, was playing in a snow pile beside 
the front door. But Tumbleweed was 
lying strangely silent, by his side, her hair 
still smoldering, her hands cruelly 
burned where she had torn away the 
baby’s clothing. There was no recogni- 
tion in her dull blue eyes when Mrs. 
Warner bent frantically over her. 

“Baby — Wee — darling,” she cried, — 
“why didn’t you come to mother? Oh, 
what made you come out here?” 


WHEN THE PRINCE CAME 33 


Tumbleweed’s heavy eyes lifted. 

“My father,” she said, and her voice 
had a faint echo of its usual lilt; “my 
father blew the fire out.” Then she 
crumpled like a withered flower in her 
mother’s arms. 

In the days that followed Billy was ex- 
cluded from the sick-room because his 
presence excited Tumbleweed. But Julie 
and Baby Ted grew very dear to the little 
invalid during her long weeks of convales- 
cence. The little girls formed that 
peculiarly intimate friendship which prob- 
ably comes to each child but once. Tumble- 
weed said and solemnly believed that she 
could never have any other friend — and 
Julie found her heart’s desire in Wee. 
Haloed days, alight with the wonder of 
one’s first exploration in another soul, 
were theirs ! 

Late one afternoon when Tumbleweed 
was almost well, she and Julie were sitting 
before the fire. Julie had been reading 
from a wonderful book of fairy-tales and 


34 


TUMBLEWEED 


the two children were poring over the pic- 
ture of a beautiful princess, high on the 
back of a gallant white horse behind her 
rescuer prince. Suddenly Tumbleweed 
raised her head and looked at her little 
companion. The firelight shed an un- 
wonted splendor over Julie’s eager face 
and softened her vivid coloring into real 
beauty. 

“ Julie,” Tumbleweed spoke slowly, 
with the mystery note in her voice ; 
“you’re most beautiful enough to be a 
princess — maybe you are.” 

Julie’s radiant color deepened as she 
laughed. 

“Let’s both be princesses,” she cried 
generously. “Oh, let’s dress up while 
mother and auntie are gone. I’ll wear 
my play costume and find something for 
you!” 

She was gone and back like a flash, arms 
piled high with finery, while Tumbleweed 
sought eagerly for her best slippers and 
silk stockings. Julie preened before the 


WHEN THE PRINCE CAME 35 


mirror in her dainty little costume, now 
pinning a curl high, now retying a bow. 
But Tumbleweed was absorbed in the 
strange thrill of her trailing skirts and the 
shimmering beauty of her mother’s best 
scarf which she had taken from its soft 
tissue wrappings. She did not even glance 
at the mirror. Up and down they trailed, 
reveling in their unusual garb. Then 
Tumbleweed sat on the steps watching 
Julie’s gay little figure as she danced 
down the hall. 

“Oh, Julie,” she called, remembering 
the shadow-tag game, “you promised ta 
teach me to dance!” 

“Come on, then, follow me,” Julie call- 
ed, as she* pirouetted before the mirror. 
Tumbleweed hesitated, a new conscious- 
ness of self restraining her. With quick 
impatience she shook it off and tried to 
imitate Julie. 

Then, suddenly, she caught sight of her- 
self in the mirror. Her burned hair had 
been cut close and the fair skin, shorn of 


36 


TUMBLEWEED 


its habitual covering, bad that almost 
startling purity which makes a child’s* 
forehead such an irresistible thing to kiss. 
The weeks of confinement had left great 
shadows under the blue eyes, and her long 
borrowed robes hung loosely from her thin 
little body, swaying weirdly as she tried 
to dance. She looked like a frightened 
white rabbit. A more utter contrast to 
Julie’s radiance could scarcely be imag- 
ined. 

Catching her breath in a sob, Tumble- 
weed gathered her long skirts out of her 
way and ran up the stairs. With that uni- 
versal impulse of a hurt thing to hide it- 
self forever and ever, far down, she flung 
herself flat on the floor. There are mo- 
ments in a woman’s life when lack of 
beauty seems like bitter guilt and she suf- 
fers from it as from sin. Such a moment 
had come to Tumbleweed when Mrs. 
Warner bent over the little figure stretch- 
ed on the bear rug in her room, the shim- 
mering scarf crumpled under its head. 


“WHEN THE PRINCE CAME 37 


For a few moments after, she held her 
little daughter, sobbing, in her arms. Then 
Tumbleweed’s words came in a torrent. 

“Mother, mother, I want to be beauti- 
ful ! I took your bestest scarf and my silk 
Stockings and — and everything — and I 
wasn’t beautiful at all. We were prin- 
cesses, Julie and me, and — Julie said you 
couldn’t be a princess or have a prince 
with a white horse ’less you were beauti- 
ful. Oh, mother, I want to be beautiful !” 

Mrs. Warner smiled tenderly over the 
top of the little shorn head. But she was 
silent, thinking, until the sobs had ceased. 
Tumbleweed looked up shyly. 

“When my hair gets longer will you 
curl it, mother, and get me a lovely dress 
like Julie’s?” 

Then Mrs. Warner spoke. 

“Things won’t make you beautiful, 
Wee,” she said; and the emphasis was not 
lost on the child. 

Tumbleweed pondered for a moment, 
then she asked quietly: 


38 TUMBLEWEED 

“What will make me beautiful, moth- 
er?” 

Mrs. Warner looked deep into her little 
daughter’s eyes. 

“Being beautiful isn’t nearly so impor- 
tant as you think, W ee dear, ’ 9 she said with 
as puzzled an expression as Tumble- 
weed’s own — “that is, not the way you 
mean.” Conscious that she had dodged 
the question, she suddenly felt her little 
girl’s great need of something definite. 
Her eyes began to dance. 

“I’ll tell you a secret, honey,” she said. 
“If you brush your hair fifty strokes on 
each side of your head every day you’ll be 
beautiful. And the out-of-doors will help 
a lot. Did you know that the doctor said 
you could go out to-morrow?” 

“Oh, mother!” Tumbleweed was her 
old self again as she sprang up to tell 
Julie the news. 

Prom her chair by the window, Mrs. 
Warner could hear the shout of joy that 
greeted Tumbleweed’s announcement. It 


[WHEN THE PRINCE CAME 39 

was time for tlie children’s supper but she 
sat on, lost in thought. Tumbleweed’s 
cry with its note of intense longing was 
ringing in her ears ; “ Oh, mother, I want 
to be beautiful!” She knew how many, 
many more times the words would echo in 
her little girl’s heart even when they found 
no expression on her lips. And she knew 
that in a few years the magic rite of fifty 
strokes of the brush would not satisfy 
Tumbleweed. Was there any answer to 
the question, she wondered, a little wear- 
ily. She stooped to pick up the scarf from 
the floor where Tumbleweed had left it. 
The light gleamed on its silver filigree and 
deepened the soft rose chiffon of the folds. 
Mrs. Warner held it a moment between 
her fingers, smiling at it absently. “It is 
pretty,” she said musingly to herself, 
slipping it over her head and turning to- 
ward the mirror. Then she stopped 
with a sudden impulse, flinging the scarf 
away from her. 

“Why,” she said in surprise; “I c want 


40 


TUMBLEWEED 


to be beautiful’ with things, too.” With 7 
a sudden, shamed little laugh she covered 
her face with her hands. “But I want 
more to be heart-beautiful,” she said very 
softly — “and wise.” Then she left the 
room ; the gay scarf, forgotten, lay shining 
on the chair. 

Early, early the next morning, Tumble- 
weed awoke. She had slept but fitfully, 
excited as she was over the wonderful 
thought that to-morrow she could go out. 
With eager haste she slipped into her 
clothes and, shoes in hand, crept down the 
stairs. Her heart almost stopped beating 
at the thought that she might be followed. 
This return to the beloved land of out-of- 
doors was a sacred journey, and the heart 
makes its sacred journeys alone. It was 
very hard to unlock the heavy door and 
open it noiselessly, but at last she managed 
it. Then, with no thought of the shoes she 
had dropped, Tumbleweed ran out into 
the great silent country gilded with the 
early sunlight. 


WHEN THE PRINCE CAME 41 


Spring, hushed, glistening, aflutter with 
bird wings, scented with strange intoxica- 
tion ! Swiftly Tumbleweed made her 
way across the brown fields, pausing a mo- 
ment by the glittering, half-melted pond to 
gather an armful of pussy willows, then 
straight on to the top of the little hill above 
the water. The climb brought the wind 
color into her cheeks. With a gasp of de- 
light she clasped the pussy willows tighter 
as she reached the summit and lifted her 
radiant eyes to sweep the whole still won- 
der of the fresh country within the com- 
pass of her eager heart. She waited, ex- 
pectant, till the morning breeze swayed the 
tassel-laden branches she held. The per- 
fect joy of attainment touched her face. 

i 4 Father Wind,” she said softly; “I 
have come — for you to make me beauti- 
ful.” 

Later, Julie found her and they went 
leisurely homeward, searching for cro- 
cuses, jumping on the soft, fragrant 
spongy earth that sprang back from the 


42 


TUMBLEWEED 


pressure of their feet, so full was it of the 
life that was to come. Eor a long, deli- 
cious half-hour they knelt by the swollen 
spring, sending little twig boats for mad 
careers on its eddying waters. Then 
Tumbleweed wove a wonderful hark of 
pussy willows and stuck it full of purple 
crocus blooms. Julie watched curiously. 

“What are you doing, Wee ?” 

Tumbleweed did not answer for a mo- 
ment. She held the little flower-filled boat 
in her hands; like the tender, beauty- 
promising things about her she seemed to 
be putting on new life. Her flushed cheeks 
and sparkling blue eyes, the eager joy of 
her whole figure, perhaps, too, a remem- 
brance of the day before, made Julie gasp. 

“Wee, you’re beautiful, beautiful,” she 
said. “When the prince comes you must 
be out here like this, and give him a 
drink.” 

Tumbleweed smiled happily. “Mother 
told me how to be beautiful, Julie,” she 
said confidently. ‘ ‘ It must be working for 


WHEN THE PRINCE CAME 43 


I did it last night and this morning. I’ll 
tell you by and by.” In her inmost heart 
Tumbleweed thought the out-of-doors 
had made her beautiful, but she only in- 
tended to tell Julie about brushing her 
hair. 

With much ceremony she launched her 
boat and the stream bore it away. 

“I’m sending the boat with a message 
to my prince,” she said shyly. 

Julie’s romantic little soul reveled in 
such moments. 

“Oh, Wee, how lovely! Tell me what 
you think he looks like. Perhaps he ’s just 
a little boy now.” 

Tumbleweed considered for a moment. 
The subject of princes, too closely pressed, 
lost its interest. She suddenly remember- 
ed that her stockinged feet were wet and 
cold and that she was hungry. 

“I don’t know,” she said indifferently. 
“But I won’t marry a little boy. He’ll be 
old — oh, ever so old, ’most twenty, I guess. 
Let’s go home!” 


44 


TUMBLEWEED 


She started nervously; as Billy jumped 
from behind the bushes to frighten them. 
He had been sent with Tumbleweed’s 
shoes — and he had been listening. Errands 
were not to Billy’s liking and he was 
possessed, as always, by the spirit of con- 
tradiction. 

“You will marry a little boy, silly,” he 
said. “ ’Cause you’re only a little girl and 
the man you marry will have to be a little 
i>oy, so there.” 

Tumbleweed was still trembling from 
the shock of seeing Billy so suddenly. “I 
won’t marry a little boy — or any one that 
ever was a little boy,” she said angrily. 
“I hate little boys!” 

Then she and Julie walked on together 
whispering, with that superior air which 
so irritated Billy. They took no notice of 
his offer to race. Tumbleweed was tell- 
ing Julie how to be beautiful. So quickly 
do the scales change ! 


PART TWO 


FIRE 

“ ‘What is fire V ashed the Boy . 

“And the Coyote told him that fire was 
red like a flotver, yet not a flower; swift 
to run in the grass and to destroy , like a 
beast , and yet no beast — fierce and hurt- 
ful — •” 1 i The Fire Bringer/' 






CHAPTER TV] 


BEING HERSELE 

“ Mother-Mine — I wish you weren’t in 
that far-off Italian place, but right here in 
my little room to see my hair piled high on 
my head for the very first time. The back: 
of my head felt so shivery queer this 
morning, like those dreams of going out 
half dressed! And it’s startled me so— 
and made me feel so grown up to catch 
sight of myself at times in the mirror to- 
day. It’s lucky hair can come down at 
night, isn’t it — else I’d grow to a veritable 
Bible age in a few days! You see I kept 
my promise and didn’t do it up until I was 
seventeen. It was so queer this morning 
brushing it up instead of just back. But 
I’ve been getting brushed up all day my- 
self and I need you to little-girl brush me 
back. Being seventeen is ever so much 
47 


48 


TUMBLEWEED 


harder than being sixteen years and three 
hundred and sixty-four days old! 

“It all started this morning, as a birth- 
day is rather apt to do, by the way. As 
you suggested I asked Aunt Ellen and 
Uncle Joe and Julie and Billy and Ted to 
come out for the week and help celebrate 
my birthday. Ted is off on a Scout hike — 
imagine — but the others came and brought 
a little girl, Elizabeth Rowe, with them. 
She’s been visiting Julie all summer and 
is going to Maplewood Prep, in the fall, 
so we’ll see a good deal of her. She bores 
Julie dreadfully, but I love her, she’s so 
round and adoring! We all call her 
Chubby. 

“Mother, why have you always made me 
feel that having a birthday was an act of 
especial virtue? This morning I got up 
early, feeling myself all-important, piled 
my hair high and dressed carefullest-care- 
ful, like a queen for her coronation. Then 
I went out to my own high hill for my 
birthday session with the wind. 


BEING HERSELF 


49 


“.When I came home, all swept and gar- 
nished for the new year, I expected to be 
kissed and petted and made much of as a 
Birthday Girl ought to be. But, mother, 
Julie wasn’t even up, Billy had driven 
Aunt Ellen to town for the mail, and even 
.Chubby was off somewhere in the woods. 
I wanted to cry, but I remembered I was 
seventeen and grown up, so I didn’t. 

“Nobody even mentioned my birthday 
until Chubby came in late for breakfast 
with a bunch of the loveliest wild roses you 
ever saw. She’d tramped two miles and 
back to get them for me. She’s laughed 
every time I’ve called her ‘Remem- 
brancer’ to-day, but I think she likes it. 
And I’ve decided one thing, mother, that 
every household needs a Remembrancer, a 
person to keep track of birthdays and an- 
niversaries and all the things people for- 
get — and I’m going to be ours. It’s one of 
the birthday resolutions I sent you this 
morning by windograph. Did you get 
them? 


50 


TUMBLEWEED 


“This afternoon I felt as if I couldn’t 
stand any; more brushing up, so when Julie 
had a caller, a very stylish, white-gloved 
girl she’d known at school, Chubby and I 
sneaked. Chubby said they were talking 
about men and formals and evening 
gowns, so when she heard Aunt Ellen say 
she’d send for us, we crept around the 
hedge and skipped oft over my own high 
hill to the creek, then in the canoe down 
to the meadows. It was thrilling to be 
actually running away and we were 
breathless by the time we’d paddled to the 
meadows, far out of the sound of Aunt 
Ellen’s voice. Chubby fairly wriggled 
with delight at the thought of playing a 
whole golden afternoon out-of-doors in- 
stead of sipping tea with Julie’s friend. 
And I forgot all about being seventeen and 
grown up. 

“ How we played ! W e laughed and sang 
and ran till we almost dropped from tired- 
ness. Then we shut our eyes and held 
hands and walked ’fraidy-like over the 


BEI m HERSELF 


51 


meadows. After a long time we opened 
them to see where we were. Opening your 
eyes after walking blind is just like being 
born again somehow; everything is sq 
beautiful, blue and green and gold and 
good — did you ever try it? "We walked 
into the creek and almost frightened a) 
peaceful old cow out of its wits — and then 
went bump up against Billy and a friend 
of his, a Mr. Carman who is staying with 
the Ainslees. He’s connected with the* 
music department of Exeter, someway, 
so Billy met him at college. 

“Of course running bump up against 
him like that we couldn’t be very formal— 
but Billy did introduce me as ‘Miss 
Warner.’ Oh, mother, it’s such fun to be 
called ‘Miss.’ Wasn’t it dear of Billy to 
remember I’m grown up? Does college) 
teach you things like that ? 

“We all walked part way home togeth- 
jer ; then Mr. Carman and I took the canoe. 
Mr. Carman is very strange — the sort of 
older man that just fascinates you — he 


52 


TUMBLEWEED 


seems to know so much about the world, 
and — oh, all sorts of things you aren’t big 
enough yet to understand. He let me 
paddle and lay back on the cushions 
watching me. Of course, I’d rather have 
something to do when there’s a man 
around — but it would have been heaps 
more romantic if he’d paddled and let me 
watch. When I told him so, he just 
laughed and said he had a strange sort of 
feeling he’d seen me somewhere before. 
We compared all the places we’d been in 
the last few years in that silly, match-cards 
sort of way — but we couldn’t match at all. 
Then we stopped talking for a long while. 
It was goldeny-quiet, my beloved long- 
shadow time, when the sun slips in be- 
tween the branches of the trees as if it 
were caressing them, and all the world is 
waiting, still and glad, for its father 
to come home. I was thinking wind 
thoughts, when Mr. Carman looked 
at me in an amused sort of way and asked 
me why I didn’t talk. When I told him I 


(BEING HERSELF 


53 


didn’t have anything to say he laughed 
again. I’m not quite sure I like his laugh- 
ing at things that aren’t funny. (Why do 
grown-up people always do that ? I’m not 
going to. 

“Aunt Ellen asked Mr. Carman to stay; 
lor dinner, my birthday dinner. Jane had 
remembered how you always have my cake 
and candles and we had a beautiful good 
time. J ulie wore an evening gown she had 
for school last year and looked regal and 
splendid, and Aunt Ellen was all dressed 
up. But Chubby and I wore just simple 
white dresses. Mercy, mother, I hope I 
don’t ever have to wear anything that has 
no sleeves at all; I’d feel like — an angle- 
worm. 

i ‘ Billy had bought me one of the air balls 
I used to love, for a joke — one of those 
big, shiny red ones that are so light they 
almost make you dizzy to touch them. I 
don’t think Aunt Ellen quite liked his 
tying it to my chair ; she does so love for- 
mality! After dinner Billy and Chubby 


54 


TUMBLEWEED 


and I began playing with the ball, hitting 
it to one another without letting it touch 
the floor. Before we stopped we’d upset 
almost everything in the house and driven 
Julie and Mr. Carman to the garden. I 
think they like each other a lot, in a witty 
society sort of fashion. Julie fairly shone 
all evening ! 

“ After a while they came in and Mr. 
Carman began to play. Oh, mother, I sus- 
pected then what I’ve found out since, 
that he’s a true Wind Person! The music 
was so beautiful, as Chubby and I listened 
in the moonlight, that it almost broke my 
heart. That sounds silly but you’ll under- 
stand! All the far-off, forgotten, beau- 
tiful things of the world shimmered and 
rainbowed through it, and I felt like the 
little lame boy in the Pied Piper trying, 
limpingly, to follow. Oh, mother, I wish 
I 'knew more and saw more and thought 
more and lived more! I’m just greedy 
about life ; I want everything, everything 
good, bad and indifferent. I guess Chubby 


BEING HERSELF 


55 


felt the far call, too, ’cause she looked at 
me all of a sudden and took hold of my; 
hand and said: 6 Don’t go wa y off there, 
Tumbleweed.’ 

“ Julie sang later and Billy played the 
flute, but I couldn’t listen. The gnomes 
that keep guard on the threshold of my 
ears had shut the doors. I was Wendy up 
in the dark swaying tree-tops in that won- 
derful last scene of Peter Pan . !And then. 
Suddenly, they asked me to sing. For a 
moment I couldn’t think of a thing. r Julie 
suggested several songs of hers, but I told 
her they were all love-songs and I wouldn’t 
sing anything I didn’t understand — and 
that I didn’t understand love — yet. That 
embarrassed Julie a little, I don’t know 
why — but Mr. Carman laughed again. 
Then that wonderful 4 Early Morning’ 
song from the Country Lover popped 
into my head. Do you remember ? 

u 6 The Moon on the one hand, the Dawn on 
the other ; 


56 


TUMBLEWEED 


The Moon is my; sister, the Dawn is my; 
brother. 

“ ‘Tlxe Moon on my left and the Dawn on 
my right ; 

My brother, good morning ; my sister, good 
night.’ 

“My heart was so high in the tree-tops 
and I felt so bathed in the cool, sweet- 
scented white light, so much a member of 
the great eternal out-of-doors family that 
I sang better than usual, I think. Mr. 
Carman liked it, I know, for he stopped 
the others when they asked for more. 
* Don’t spoil perfection,’ he said in that 
lovely masterful way he has. Don’t you 
like a bossy man? And, before I knew it, 
we were alone, just we two, on the little 
seat in the garden, and I was telling him 
how his music made me feel. 

“He said I had a very wonderful voice, 
but that it needed more training than 
it had had so far, We talked technicali- 


BEING IIERSELE 


57 


ties for a wliile; then lie said that what 
made my voice was a fairy quality, a mys- 
terious feeling it gave people, a habit of 
personifying things. He said he ’d noticed 
it even before I began to sing. And he was 
ever so interested when I told him how 
you used to be afraid I was a changeling. 
He said, too, that I wasn’t a bit like other 
girls ; that I reminded him of some sort of 
outdoor sprite, and that a quotation from 
a book of Richard Jefferies he was read- 
ing had been going through his head every 
time he looked at me all evening: ‘It 
seemed as if he had drunk of the very 
shadow of green boughs.’ It was a queer 
sort of compliment but I liked it. Do you 
know anything about Jefferies, mother? 
Mr. Carman said he was an outdoor per- 
son like me and that I must read his book, 
The Open Air . Isn’t that the loveliest 
name? It just whisks you off to the top 
of your own high hill, where the wind 
sweeps through you and the far world, out- 
stretched, awaits you ! I told Mr. Carman 


58 


TUMBLEWEED 


that and then he remembered where he 
had seen me. It seems that, years ago, 
when he was at the Ainslees’ for a while, I 
Went singing through the woods on a wind 
errand of some sort. He must have irri- 
tated me, for I called him a Not — and just 
think, mother, he’s remembered all this 
time and asked me to-night to explain to 
him what I meant by Wind Persons and 
Note. 

‘ ‘ It wasn’t so hard out in the shadowed 
garden place after the music — but it’s 
never easy. I wonder why ! I tried to ex- 
plain how, most every one has some classi- 
fication — the possible or the impossible — • 
the understanding or the stupid — and how 
other people fit every one they meet into 
one class or the other — how they talk 
about people’s having 4 the spark’ or 
lacking it — and how Wind Persons and 
Nots was my way of classifying the world. 
How a Wind Person was most keenly con- 
scious of the ‘inside’ things, was a feel- 
ing person primarily, who didn’t need to 


BEING HERSELF 


59 


liaye everything put into the baldest termq 
in order to understand. I thought he was 
beginning to see what I meant when he 
said: 4 Then the "Wind Persons are the 
congenial sort, the ones you like to work 
and play with?’ It took me about ten 
minutes more to make him see that it 
wasn’t that exactly, that some Wind Per- 
sons, like J ulie, for instance, could be per- 
fect ‘muts’ to play with. It’s queer, 
isn’t it, that you really could dislike a 
Wind Person? But somehow, you could 
never despise one, like you can the Nots, 
because, after all, they do live ‘down 
among the roots of the staging’; they’vq 
been present at the christening party. 

“Mr. Carman was surprised when I said 
Julie was a Wind Person. So I told him 
lots of little-girl things we’d done together 
and he seemed to like to listen. It was 
getting late and Aunt Ellen was putting 
out lights and shutting windows before he 
started to go. He asked me if I never 
doubted my classification of Wind Persons 


60 


TUMBLEWEED 


and Nots. I never had before but, some- 
how, all of a sudden, I wasn’t sure. I told 
him he’d mixed me up because I used to 
think him a Not and now I was sure he 
was utterly a Wind Person, but he smiled 
and shook his head. Then he held out his 
hand. ‘You’re a dweller in the realm of 
the spirit, Tumbleweed; be careful when 
the flesh intrudes. Good night.’ 

“Oh, mother, I’ve had the queerest feel- 
ings ever since ! I don’t know at all what 
he means by the spirit and the flesh. It 
sounds sort of ominous — like the Bible. 
And he’s made me so uncertain. That’s 
the very worst brushing up, (and yet hon- 
estly I sort of liked it). But the secret 
of my mixed-up birthday, I believe, is that 
I can’t be sure any more about the Wind 
Persons and the Nots. I used to be so cer- 
tain, once I had made up my mind, but 
now, I don’t know — Julie has acted like 
a Not, lately. I feel so — so half afraid, 
mother. If I were little, I’d come hide 
my head on your lap and tell you I felt 


BEING HBESBLE 


61 


tlie dark coming. I guess growing up 
ought to be called shaking up or maybe 
waking up. But, at least, it’s tingly! 
Much love and many thanks for the lovely 
box. I wrote you thanks for that this 
morning. 

“ Tumbleweed/'' 

As ,Wee finished her letter, the door: 
below slammed and a man’s footsteps 
crossed the hall. 

“Oh, father,” Julie, pink-robed and 
worried, hung over the stairs. “Would 
you mind looking out in the garden and 
doWn-stairs for my fleur de lis pin? I’ve 
lost it and I’m just heart-broken.” 

“I’ll help you, Uncle Joe,” Tumble- 
weed called, starting down the stairs. She 
was glad of a chance for a little visit with 
the doctor before this strange, first grown- 
up day should be over. As she held the 
flash-light, while he lifted rugs and shook 
cushions in their fruitless search, Tumble- 
weed told him all about the day. Hq 


62 


TUMBLEWEED 


smiled at her description of Julie’s caller. 
How unlike Tumbleweed and Julie were. 
He thought of it again when they reported 
their futile search and Julie’s distressed 
and not very sincere “Thank you” came 
'down to them. 

Then Tumbleweed pushed him into a 
cushioned chair on the porch and made 
him promise to keep his eyes closed till 
she came back. It was very restful after 
his long worried day. The sound of the 
ice in the tall frosted glass she brought 
him completed his sense of relaxation. 
Tumbleweed perched on the arm of his 
chair as he drank. 

“Let me tickle your hair,” she begged, 
running her fingers with the soft stroking 
gesture he loved through the hair that was 
growing a little gray and thin at the tem- 
ples. “How I can play you’re my fa- 
ther.” 

“I wish we had found Julie’s pin,” he 
said, with a little sigh. “She’ll worry 
herself sick about it.” 


BMNU HEKlSJilLF 


63 


“I know.” Tumbleweed nodded into 
the dark. “ Uncle Joe, why are people so 
crazy about things ?” 

The doctor did not answer. After a mo- 
ment Tumbleweed went on. “Mrs. Jones 
came over for a minute this morning and 
she was ever so much more excited about 
the dry cleaners’ having torn her white 
gloves than over her next-door neighbor’s 
sickness. And Julie’s thinking more this 
very minute about her lost pin than 
she is about your being tired. Itinust say 
that I don’t understand. Things don’t 
seem worth it to me. It’s— it’s so topsy- 
turvy.” 

“It is topsyturvy, Wee.” 

“But, most everybody seems to feel that 
way, Uncle Joe. Do you ’spose I’m the 
topsyturvy one? Mr. Carman said to- 
night I was different.” 

“No, I don’t think you’re topsyturvy, 
Wee.” The doctor hesitated. “You’ll 
care more for things by and by, probably, 
when they don’t appear for the asking. 


M 


TUMBLEWEED 


But for now, you’re just a bit cleverer 
than Julie and Mrs. Jones.” 

He put down bis glass and took Tumble- 
weed ’s band in bis. 

6 ‘Did you ever bear tbe story of Prince 
Priggio?” be asked. 

“No.” Tumbleweed sigbed ecstatically. 
Uncle Joe’s stories were a rare treat. 

“Well, a man I used to know, Andrew 
Lang, made it up, and it’s all about tbe ad- 
ventures of Prince Priggio wbo was too 
clever to believe in fairies or magic gifts, 
so very clever that every one in tbe king- 
dom bated him. He sent bis two brothers 
to their death because be said tbe hideous 
monster they bad gone to fight was a fable 
and no one so clever as be could believe 
in fables. But at last when be bad been 
so clever that every one, even bis own fa- 
ther and mother, detested him and cast 
him out, be found some fairy gifts in an 
attic, and made use of them. He really 
was clever, you see, because, once be be- 
lieved in them, be didn’t refuse to use 


BEING HERSELF. 


65 


them. And of course they brought him 
honor, restored him to the kingdom, and 
gave him a very beautiful princess for his 
wife. And after they were married she 
begged him to put on the wishing cap and 
wish that he might be no more clever than 
other people, for she saw it was going to 
be the same story right over again. For 
no one likes to have too clever a person 
around. But Prince Priggio couldn’t 
bring himself to wish that. So he went to 
the tower, shut himself up alone, put the 
wishing cap on his head and wished that 
he might seem to be no cleverer than other 
people. And after that all was well. ’ ’ 

“Just what does it mean, Uncle Joe?” 
Tumbleweed asked quietly. She knew 
from his lack of detail in the telling that 
it had been told for a purpose. 

“That you’re a bit like the prince, Wee. 
No, dear, I didn’t mean priggish. But 
there’s a lot for you to learn about the ex- 
istence and the use of fairy gifts. You 
see the game, the great game of life, is, 


66 


TUMBLEWEED 


after all, playing at being like other 
people.” 

“But I don’t want to play at being like 
other people,” Wee pouted. “I think 
other people’s games are stupid. I want 
to play my own game,” 

The doctor laughed. 

“Where’s the girl I heard talking bas- 
ket ball and team work the other night?” 
he asked. “In the great game every one 
has a place as surely as — well, as you’ve 
been playing forward this winter. But if 
you’d insisted on doing it all yourself 
you’d never have gotten anywhere. Tou 
had to play at being just like the rest, fol- 
low the same rules, even if we did think 
you threw more baskets than the others. 
Eor the success of the whole game you 
can’t be looking for a star part. But 
school will teach you that.” 

Tumbleweed sighed discouragedly. 

“It’s just like reading a rule book be- 
fore you begin to play,” she said, as she 
kissed him good night. “Spaulding was 


BEING HEKSELF 


67 


a perfect muddle to me, till I’d played a 
couple of times — then it got clear.” 

“I hope it’ll be that way with school,” 
he thought, as he watched her disappear in 
the shadows. Knowing Tumbleweed per- 
haps better than any one else in the 
world knew her, he had tried to prepare 
her for a few of the things that he felt 
must inevitably come. But perhaps it had 
been too soon. He wished Carman had 
kept still. Julie, at any rate, never needed 
to be prepared. He remembered Tumble- 
weed’s comment at her foresightedness, 
with a smile. It was true that she did see 
“ miles ahead like automobile headlights 
without any dimmers at all.” 

And Tumbleweed, above, was wonder- 
ing about the most fascinating subject in 
the world to her at that particular moment 
— herself. 

“It certainly is tingly, being grown up,” 
she said, as she slipped out of her kimono 
in the darkness. She stood in front of the 
mirror and peered at the shadowy reflec- 


,68 


TUMBLEWEED 


tion. The very short sleeves and low neck 
of her white gown, the high-piled hair, 
made her look like some mystic regal lady 
of the long ago. With her hands clasped 
she gazed in awed admiration into the sil- 
ver depths as if they held portent of the 
future. She saw many things she had 
never seen before. She saw herself sing- 
ing, in radiant beauty, before great audi- 
ences, sitting in exquisite gardens with 
strange, interesting, know-all-about-the- 
world men bending over her, eager to 
catch every word. She saw adventure and 
romance and love awaiting the white- 
robed lady with the shining hair, this lady 
who was “different,” who had a wonder- 
ful voice, who was cleverer than other peo- 
ple. Uncle Joe was very much mistaken 
if he thought she was going to try to hide 
all this — why should she? Wasn’t it a 
gift? Wasn’t it going to make her popu- 
lar (glorious word) at school? Of course 
people weren’t going to hate her; they 


BEING HERSELF 


69 


never had. They were going to love her, 
love her because she was “ different.’ ’ 

But even one’s seventeenth birthday 
must end, and mirrors of the future be 
left to their picturing unobserved. Tum- 
bleweed pulled the pins out of her hair 
and waited. For a moment it kept its high 
coils, then, with a little shiver, it slipped 
to one side and fell about her shoulders. 
As she brushed she talked to herself. 

“I don’t care what any one says, I’m 
going to be myself, just myself ” 

She had all the joy in the Philistine 
declaration that every egoist from the be- 
ginning of the world has experienced as 
he said it. J ust before she went to sleep 
she smiled dreamily: “I’m gr owin’ up so 
fast I’ll have to make over all my thought 
clothes before I go away to school if 
they’re going to be fit to wear. And 
they’ve got to be just stunning — cerise, I 
guess!” 


CHAPTER Y 


THE PAGAN 

“Girls, I’ve got a sensation,’ ’ Kather- 
ine Moore announced to the group of girls 
who had gathered in her room the night 
Maplewood opened. One would have 
thought from the excitement of her state- 
ment and the eagerness with which it was 
received that Katherine had lived all her 
life in a sensation-proof box. After vari- 
ous exclamations some one asked the in- 
evitable question. 6 4 What is it, Kay ? ’ ’ 

“It’s a new girl on our floor and she’s 
the oddest, most original little thing I 
ever saw. She’s Julie’s cousin and 
they’ve lived together for months at a 
time.” 

“But what’s her name?” 

“That’s one of the queer things. She 
70 


THE PAGAN 


71 


doesn’t seem to have any. Julie calls her 
c Wee,’ short for Tumbleweed. Julie 
said that was a name her father gave her 
long ago, because she was so easily influ- 
enced, and she loves the wind and has in- 
sisted upon being called Tumbleweed 
<ever since. I don’t understand what the 
wind has to do with it, but that’s what 
Julie said. What is a tumbleweed, any- 
how?” 

She looked around the circle of eager 
faces, but no one answered for a moment. 
Then Alene spoke, derisively, in the deep 
yoice that proclaimed her a westerner. 

“Oh, you city-dwellers,” she said, “you 
ought to come out on to my prairies and 
learn things. A tumbleweed is just a 
dried up plant, such a light ball of a thing 
that it floats on the slightest breeze. It 
goes sailing around the world for miles 
and miles, just where the wind blows it. 
It’s — the personification of abandonment. 
Where is the new girl ? I want to see her. 
She sounds like home.” 


72 


TUMBLEWEED 


Alene arose, but before sbe could reach 
the door there was a rap and Katherine 
sprang to open it. Tumbleweed, in a tan 
linen dress, flushed and star-eyed trom a 
hundred new experiences, held out her 
hand. 

“Kay,” she said gaspingly, as if she had 
known her for years instead of hours, 
“just this last few moments I’ve lost my 
rose-thought dress and I can’t find any- 
thing but blue, blue homesick ones.” 

Katherine stood embarrassed, not quite 
understanding, conscious of the wide-eyed 
audience behind her. W ee, too, saw them ; 
her tense mood broke into little shivering 
bits of laughter. 

“You look for all the world like the 
Council of Trent,” she said, advancing 
into the room. “ Not that I have the faint- 
est remembrance of what the Council of 
Trent was. But don’t any one tell me! 
Lessons don’t begin until to-morrow. Oh, 
please don’t look at me like owls!” 

Alene moved over on the trunk. 


THE PAGAN 


73 


“If you’re Tumbleweed,” she said in 
her big, calm, authoritative voice, “you’re 
to come over here and sit down beside me. 
I’m the only person in this whole room 
who knows what your name means.” She 
studied Wee, quite without embarrass- 
ment. “Yes — it fits,” she said at last. 
“You’re very like it — light and graceful 
and well — impelled — ” 

The girls laughed. ‘ 6 Alene is the frank- 
est person in the world,” Katherine ex- 
plained apologetically. “But now you 
must meet every one.” 

It w r as a fascinating group to Tumble- 
weed and her eagerness made meeting 
her a pleasure. Some one clamored for 
her to explain what she had meant by her 
“rose-thought dress.” 

“Well, I meant — I was lonesome,” she 
answered. “You see I feel just like the 
country mouse come to visit his town cou- 
sin. When bells ring and all the rest of 
you do things, I follow after, scared to 
death it’s a cook or a cat or a trap or 


74 


TUMBLEWEED 


something. And so — my nice rose-thought 
dress that was all pressed and pretty to 
come in, got lost, somehow — and I couldn’t 
find anything but a blue one.” She looked 
like such a child as she sat on the trunk, 
swinging her feet, her hands clasped in 
front of her as she made her confession— 
and they knew so well, these girls, the 
panic of the first night — that they fell to 
planning something to do. 

“You all come down to my room,” 
Alene said, “and we’ll make candy,” 

It was the most thrilling party Tumble- 
weed had ever been to. She was not en- 
tirely unconscious of the fact that she her- 
self was furnishing most of the thrills. 
But she was enjoying herself so intensely, 
she was so willing to sing, anything and 
everything they asked for, to the accom- 
paniment of Kay’s banjo, that the one or 
two girls who were keen enough to see it, 
forgave the centering of attention on her- 
self. With a fineness of social perception 
that surprised no one more than herself, 


THE PAGAN 


75 


Tumbleweed was the first to go. She 
didn’t want to— it was such fun, but she 
suddenly realized the conservation of in- 
fluence that is the result of a brilliant 
short visit, the dramatic power of a first 
farewell that leaves regret behind. 

When Tumbleweed reached her room 
Julie was waiting for her. 

“ Where have you been, Wee?” she 
asked in surprise. “I came up to help you 
settle and found you had flown.” 

“Oh, Alene had a fudge party,” Wee 
explained happily. “I got panicky and 
went to Kay’s room and then — ” 

“Wee, are you talking about Katherine 
Moore and Alene Thompson?” Julie in- 
terrupted. 

“Yes; why?” 

“They’re two of the grandest girls in 
school, that’s why. Of all the popular 
freshmen!” Julie laughed. “Who else 
was there?” 

“Oh, Chubby, and a Margaret some- 
thing, and a girl they called ‘ Bunny,’ and 


76 


TUMBLEWEED 


Jean Palmer. I liked her, but somehow I 
don’t believe Kay and Alene do.” 

Julie frowned. “If I were you, I 
wouldn’t have much to do with Jean Pal- 
mer,” she said. 

“Why not'?” Tumbleweed flashed back. 

Julie shrugged her shoulders. “Well, 
most of the girls don’t,” she said. “She’s 
a little — off color, somehow.” 

“Well, if you think I’m going to be a 
prig like that you’re very much mistaken, 
Julie,” Tumbleweed blazed. “I like 
Jean Palmer just as w r ell — almost as well 
as Alene and Kay. And I shouldn’t be 
surprised if we were good friends. And I 
hate the mysterious way you say things 
about people, Julie. What do you mean 
by ‘off color’?” 

Julie was angry, too, though she tried 
to remember that being angry spoiled her 
looks. 

“Really, Wee, you’ll have to learn not 
to be such a baby,” she answered crush- 


THE PAGAN 


77 


ingly. “I simply mean she does things 
that are — well, that aren’t good form.” 

Tumbleweed shot her brush at the 
dressing-table and it lit with a crash on 
the floor. 

‘ 4 There it is again,” she said testily. 
“If people ’d learn to talk English and not 
social idioms, maybe a person could un- 
derstand ! What precisely is 6 good form, ’ 
Julie?” 

“Well, it’s not good form to quarrel 
like this. Since you’re all right, Wee, I 
guess I’ll be going.” 

Tumbleweed put her arm around Julie. 

“Thank you for coming, Ju,” she said. 
“I — I didn’t mean to be horrid about J ean 
‘ — but, you see, I just have to be myself 
and make my own judgments and friends 
and all. Don’t you think so, Ju?” 

She looked so earnest as she stood there 
that Julie’s resentment fled. 

“Yes, I suppose so,” she answered a 
trifle indifferently. “But do be careful, 


78 


TUMBLEWEED 


Wee. The first few days make a big dif- 
ference. Good night.’ ’ 

In the weeks that followed, the intimacy 
between Jean Palmer and Tumbleweed 
grew with unnatural rapidity. J ulie had 
washed her dainty hands of all responsi- 
bility, and Kay and Alene, with school- 
girl wisdom, did not interfere. 

Tumbleweed was living a life of 
thrills. Determined to be herself, she dis- 
trusted every sensation that could be 
shared. And Jean, recognizing the 
strength of her appeal to Wee’s honesty, 
as she called it, dragged her into all sorts 
of adventures that had never been a part 
of Maplewood life before. Jean lived on 
excitement and she was fast teaching Tum- 
bleweed the taste. 

So when Helen Raymond contracted 
scarlet fever and the Hall was quarantined! 
with policemen outside to guard it, Tum- 
bleweed and J ean held a council. 

“We’ve got to have some excitement,” 
Wee complained. “There isn’t a thing — 


THE PAGAN 


79 


not even lessons — to do. Everybody looks 
like a convict. Let’s stir something up!” 

One suggestion after another was repu- 
diated because it necessitated a trip to the 
stores, which in their present caged state 
was impossible. Finally Jean jumped up 
with dancing eyes. She began throwing 
things out of her dress-box. “Run quick 
and ask every one to come into the senior 
living-room at three o’clock this after- 
noon,” she cried, “and bring your paja- 
mas and your beaver hat back.” 

For the next few hours J ean and Tum- 
bleweed were closeted save when they 
burst into one room after another and 
helped themselves to an umbrella here, 
gloves there, paper, or candlesticks. One 
girl after another was pressed into serv- 
ice ; there was frantic scurrying and swift 
removal of clothes from one room to an- 
other, till no one in the Hall could have 
told where her possessions might be. 

“It’s ’most as exciting as Christmas,” 
Wee announced rapturously. 


80 


TUMBLEWEED 


At three o’clock Chubby, giggling irre- 
pressibly, opened the doors of the senior 
living-room and the girls crowded in. 
When they were all seated, the curtains at 
the north and south entrances parted and 
Jean and Tumbleweed advanced to meet 
each other. The shouts of laughter that 
greeted them almost upset their mock 
gravity. 

Jean wore pajamas, red bedroom slip- 
pers, a purple beaver hat with plumes and 
carried an umbrella for a weapon. About 
her neck hung a saucepan breastplate. 
Tumbleweed wore dancing pumps, bloom- 
ers, a fitted suit jacket turned wrong-side 
out, so that the satin lining showed, and a 
muff tied, end-up, on her head. She 
carried a poker for a weapon and a draw- 
ing-board for a shield. 

A herald, in a crepe de chine combina- 
tion suit with a tinsel covered megaphone 
for a horn, announced that Tumbleweed 
represented the freshmen and Jean the 
juniors and that they had decided to settle 



They decided to settle the dispute by single combat 
























































THE PAGAN 


81 


the class dispute by single combat. The 
girls at once chose sides and the battle 
was on. Tumbleweed’s drawing-board 
was a heavy and most effective shield. The 
only trouble was, it interfered somewhat 
with the maneuvers of the poker. But 
Jean had had fencing lessons long ago, 
and, unhampered by anything save the 
clanking saucepan breastplate, she slowly 
pushed Tumbleweed against the wall. 
By a preconcerted plan they fell together ; 
it would never do, as Tumbleweed said, 
for one or the other to win. Jean was 
only wounded, so she was doctored and 
placed in a big chair to watch the perform- 
ance. But Tumbleweed was dead. Prom 
the hall six freshmen, attired in suits and 
white gloves, brought Jean’s dress-box and 
placed Tumbleweed in it. Then they 
lifted the box to the window-seat, lighted 
candles around it, and a senior in cap and 
gown began to read an improvised funeral 
service. It was screamingly funny; the 
best wit of the Hall had gone into its com- 


82 


TUMBLEWEED 


position. Tumbleweed in her cramped 
position in the dress-box laughed silently 
till the tears rolled down her face. 

In the midst of the fun, Kay looked at 
Alene, whose concentrated glance had 
compelled her attention. As she half-ex- 
pected, Alene gave a signal — the swift 
raising of her left hand with the little 
finger extended, the others curled under — 
the signal that meant “I must see you 
right away alone.” 

Kay answered a trifle regretfully with 
the same gesture. A moment later she 
slipped out into the hall where Alene was 
awaiting her. 

“What do you make of it all?” she 
asked before Alene had time to speak. 
“Wasn’t that hit on Connie the loveliest 
thing you ever heard?” Alene smiled in 
absent-minded appreciation. Then she 
drew Kay to the window. 

“I didn’t know w T hat to make of it at 
first,” she answered in her deep voice. 
“But I don’t like it, Kay. Oh, of course, 


THE PAGAN 


83 


so far it’s all right, but — I’m afraid it’s 
only another of Jean Palmer’s ways of 
making you join in and laugh at 
things that afterward — well, you wish 
you hadn’t. But the worst of it is they’re 
planning to break quarantine, I think. I 
heard Janet Driscoll say that Wee told 
her that four policemen could never catch 
two hundred girls if they all chose to run 
different ways.” 

Kay puckered her brows. “If they 
really break quarantine, there’ll be trou- 
ble,” she said. “But it would be heaps of 
fun just to scatter over the grounds while 
we’re taking our walk and frighten the 
policemen.” 

Alene laughed. “I’m with you there,” 
she answered. “If I thought that was all 
they meant — ” She was silent for a mo- 
ment. “See here, Kay, we’ve got to go 
back in. I don’t want to miss anything 
that sounds like as much fun as that. But 
you hunt up Julie and find out what she 
knows. I’m going to stick to Wee, and if 


84 


TUMBLEWEED 


she breaks quarantine, I’m going to do it, 
too. I won’t have her off there in the city 
with J ean Palmer and her crowd.” 

Kay’s arm tightened around Alene’s 
waist. As they went back into the room 
she whispered: “If anything should hap- 
pen I’ll be waiting and watching inside. 
Three whistles — remember!” 

The top of the grand piano in the se- 
nior living-room was raised, and behind 
this impromptu screen Jean and Tumble- 
weed were admitting the curious girls 
two by two. The eagerness of the waiting 
line grew as, each time after the admis- 
sion, there was a moment of silence, fol- 
lowed by a little burst of laughter, ex- 
clamations, and the emerging of the girls 
to separate — one to join each of the grow- 
ing lines on opposite sides of the room. 

Kay and Alene went in together. Tum- 
bleweed, very much alive, was sitting up 
in her dress-box, with many folded sheets 
of Julie’s best writing-paper in her lap. 
She flushed uncertainly when she saw 


THE PAGAN 


85 


them. But Jean, a pair of huge shears in 
her hand, advanced toward them. 

“The shears of fortune/ ’ she said, dra- 
matically snapping them open and shut, 
“will cut in the middle the paper Wee has. 
On your choice of sides depends your 
fate.” 

As she cut straight through the middle 
of the folded sheet Wee held, Alene, smil- 
ing, chose the right and Kay the left. They 
waited eagerly while Tumbleweed care- 
fully smoothed out the pieces on the draw- 
ing-board. 

Alene ’s, by clever arrangement and a 
stretch of the imagination, spelled the 
w T ord “Hell.” Jean swooped down upon 
her. 

“You’re mine, then,” she said. “Go 
stand by the south entrance and we’ll tell 
you what to do later. Hurry; it’s almost 
time!” 

But Alene lingered until Kay unfolded 
the paper she had chosen. As they spread 
it out together Kay gave one frightened 


TUMBLEWEED 


86T 

look at it, then dropped it to the floor. It 
formed a perfect cross. Through Tumble- 
weed’s hurried directions to join her 
Heaven forces at the north entrance, 
Alene’s words echoed: “It’s just another 
of Jean Palmer’s ways of making you 
join in things that afterward — well, you 
wish you hadn’t.” Had Kay been a little 
older she might have understood that the 
eager talk and laughter of some of the 
girls was but a reaction from the same 
sick sensation that had come to her. But, 
as it was, they all seemed quite happy and 
she stood with sudden tears in her eyes, 
telling herself, fiercely, that she was a 
prig, and no sport, and that she hated her- 
self. Alene’s understanding smile, flash- 
ing across the room, brought her some 
comfort. As the policeman’s whistle sig- 
naled through the Hall that it was time 
for them to go for their walk, the whisper 
Alene had been expecting passed excitedly 
down both lines. 

“When Wee and Jean whistle, break 


THE PAGAN 87 

and scatter and watch the policemen 
run!” 

The girls were eager for an y excitement, 
but they; curbed their impatience and 
passed out and down the walk in two deco- 
rous lines. At the given signal the lines 
broke; girlish laughter mocked the four 
distracted policemen from every; corner of 
the campus. Like will-o’-the-wisps they 
hid behind banks and benches, trees and 
shrubs, now here, now there. For a while 
Alene and Kay fled with the rest, thrilled 
with the chase. Then, as the girls began 
to slip back past the angry officers into the 
Hall, Alene remembered Wee. Where 
was she ? 

Her frenzied question, put to the first 
girl she met, brought Alene the informa- 
tion that Jean Palmer and Janet Driscoll 
had climbed the south gate and met 
“ three fellows” and gone off toward town. 
Tumbleweed had not been seen. 

“Are you sure there were three boys?” 
Alene asked sharply. 


88 


TUMBLEWEED 


“ Yes, I thought it was queer when there 
were only two girls.’ ’ 

Alene’s sense of apprehension deepened 
as she crawled along behind the bushes to, 
the south gate. Looking through the bars 
she saw Jean and Janet and three boys 
from the military academy waiting at the 
bend far down the road. In the moment 
of watching, she saw Wee’s scarlet-coated 
figure join them. Then they all started 
to run. 

Alene stood with her head pressed 
against the bars. Should she follow ? She 
saw very clearly that if she were caught 
it would mean the loss of her senior hon- 
ors, toward which even sophomores at 
Maplewood looked. Possibly she might 
even be sent away in disgrace. And then 
she remembered that there are many 
things a man lays down for his friend. 
Tumbleweed was too easily influenced, 
too eager to taste all experience in one 
gulp, to be left alone with Jean Palmer 


THE PAGAN 


89 


and her friends. Alene climbed the gate 
and set off down the road. 

After carefully avoiding the main 
stores, she walked up and down in front 
of Thurston’s, the confectioner’s. Inside, 
the three couples were feasting on ice- 
cream and chocolate sauce with marshmal- 
lows and nuts. Alene felt miserably old 
and left out. Why had she come, anyhow, 
and once here, what was she going to do ? 
What Tumbleweed did was no business 
of hers. And surely eating ice-cream at 
Thurston’s wasn’t any great crime! 

Suddenly she heard a break in the chat- 
ter within — a hurried exclamation from 
Wee — an argument from Jean and the 
boys. Then Wee’s words came out to 
Alene clearly. 

“Well, I’m not going. You said we’d 
just come here and hurry right back. 
Why, how can I go to the movies? I’m 
not dressed under my coat and neither are 
you, Jean. And we’d surely get caught.” 


90 


tumbleweed: 


“Hush I” Jean’s angry voice was as 
loud as Wee’s surprised one had been. 

So that was the game, Alene thought. 
They had persuaded her to come this far 
and left the rest till now. 

In another moment the door opened and 
Wee, with her cheeks as red as her coat, 
her head held high, stepped out and hur- 
ried down the street. At Alene ’s familiar 
whistle she paused, and together they 
slipped into back streets and made their 
way swiftly toward the Hall over the coun- 
try road. Tumbleweed glanced at Alene 
a little frightened. “You came just be- 
cause I came,” she said. “Why don’t you 
scold?” 

“I think we’ll get enough of that soon,” 
Alene answered a little grimly. When 
they were safely over the gate, she looked 
at her watch. “We’ll have to wait about 
five minutes till Kay gets to the pantry,” 
she said. c 6 She ’s on dinner squad to-night 
and maybe we can slip in that way.” They 
sat gloomily in the shelter of a bush. The 


THE PAGAN 


91 


world about them flamed with autumn. 
Tumbleweed began to talk. 

“Honestly, I didn’t know they were 
planning anything more than a sundae at 
Thurston’s,” she said. “I — oh, Alene, I 
don’t know why, but I didn’t have a bit 
good time, all afternoon!” 

“I do; but you won’t like it, Wee, if I 
tell you. It’s because you don’t belong 
with J ean Palmer and her crowd. Their 
good times aren’t your good times. Jean 
is — well” — Alene paused, then she used 
Julie’s expression — “off color, somehow.” 

Tumbleweed was irritated. 

“Every one picks on Jean because she 
likes a good time,” she said. “I want a 
good time, too, more than anything else in 
the world. And J ean and I have decided 
to be ourselves , to be honest and not pre- 
tend being pious and conventional and ap- 
proved!” 

Alene flushed. Was being called pious 
her reward for jeopardizing her senior 
honors ? Then she saw with surprise that 


92 


TUMBLEWEED 


Wee’s head was bent low over the scarlet 
cloak and the tears were not far away. 
She looked out over the wall as she spoke, 
and her voice was serious. 

“But you didn’t have a good time try- 
ing so hard to be yourself, Wee. And it 
was because Jean made you tag along 
after her and be her second self, and do 
things you wouldn’t have done otherwise. 
That’s just the trouble, Wee. You’re do- 
ing things now you wouldn’t have dreamed 
of doing when you came to school.” 

“What am I doing?” Tumbleweed 
asked with the defiance of disturbed con- 
science. 

“You’re wearing clothes that I’ll war- 
rant you won’t take home with you at 
Christmas — real clothes, and the thought 
clothes you used to talk about when you 
first came. And,” Alene hesitated, then 
she went on bravely, with heightened 
color; “you wouldn’t have cut that paper 
in the shape of a cross for a joke when 
you first came.” 


THE PAGAN 


93 


It was Tumbleweed’s turn to flush. 
The consciousness of her flaming cheeks 
only aggravated her anger. 

“ Don’t get religious, Alene,” she said 
petulantly. “I don’t know or care a thing 
about it, and I don’t worship anything 
but the out-of-doors, Pan. I’m a pagan 
and I want a good time !” 

Alene wisely let the challenge pass. The 
overwhelming argument was on her side ; 
Tumbleweed had not had a good time. 

“But — you’re right about the thought 
clothes,” Tumbleweed confessed a mo- 
ment later with that quick change of 
mood that made her so incomprehensible 
to stolid people. “They’re all so — dirty, 
somehow. I wish Jean and J anet weren’t 
always talking about things. Jean told a 
story.” Tumbleweed shivered; then she 
looked at Alene like a frightened child. 
“It just stalks me around, that story — - 
like a beast, waiting to eat me up. And — 
it frightens me. I hate it, yet — I can’t 
forget it, and I’m so ’fraid that because I 


94 


TUMBLEWEED 


can’t, there’s something in me that likes 
it. Oh, Alene, what shall I do?” There 
was almost a wail in Wee’s voice, an in- 
tensity that showed her depth of feeling. 

Alene felt like a preacher as she spoke, 
]but there was no one else. “ It is a beast, 
Wee, and it will eat you up if you keep 
going with people who talk about things 
like that. Seriously, it seems to me, it’s 
.up to you to choose, whether you want — « 
soiled thoughts or clean ones, Wee. The 
clean ones probably won’t seem so clever. 
I’m sorry, Wee, but I think you ought to 
know that a few things like this after- 
noon will put you in a class with Jean and 
Janet.” 

The idea of being put in any class was 
distasteful to Wee. In a very small voice 
she asked her question. “The — off-color 
class?” 

“Yes,” Alene answered. 

Without a word Wee slipped out of the 
red coat, hid it in the bushes and then, 


THK PAGAN 


95 


with Alene, crawled under the pantry 
window. Three low whistles and Kay’s 
worried face appeared behind the glass. 
Another moment and she was pulling 
.them swiftly in behind the door. 

“ Quick,” she whispered, “Miss Day- 
ion’s going to call the roll. She ’s just dis- 
covered that some of the girls didn’t come 
in.” 

Suddenly Kay began vigorously beat- 
ing the eggs in the yellow bowl she held, 
leaning nonchalantly against the opened 
door, behind which Wee and Alene were 
Battened against the wall. Miss Dayton 
approached. 

“Katherine, have you seen Alene ?” she 
asked. 

“Yes, Miss Dayton, I think she and 
Wee are together. Wee ought to be dress- 
ing for dinner this minute,” she added. 

“I’m glad they’re in. If you can find 
them, please tell them to come to the liv- 
ing-room in fifteen minutes. I want eyery 


96 


TUMBLEWEED 


one there.” She passed on into the 
kitchen and before she returned Wee and 
Alene were safely in their rooms. 

Fifteen minutes later Tumbleweed, as 
neat and fresh as if she had never fought 
duels, crawled under bushes, or climbed 
walls, walked down the hall toward the 
living-room by herself. A group of girls 
were talking with tense excitement by the 
door. Among them she recognized Buth 
Wellington, the junior she adored from 
afar. 

“ Oh, .yes, it was clever enough, too 
clever. And they won’t get caught. 
They’re too clever for that,” Buth was 
saying as Tumbleweed approached. 
Then they all saw her. The cool surprise 
of Buth’s greeting cut her straight to the 
heart — the heart that Tumbleweed ac- 
knowledged to herself “ always stood on 
tiptoe, to look as tall and straight as pos- 
sible,” when Buth Wellington was near. 

The inevitable happened. Jean Palmer 
and J anet Driscoll did not answer to their 


THE PAGAN 


97 


names. A day or two later they left school 
in disgrace. Tumbleweed offered to 
“fess up” to her share in the escapade, 
hut the girls were magnanimous enough to 
see that that would only involve Alene 
and, after all, she had gone but to Thurs- 
ton’s. The surprise of the few who knew 
Tumbleweed had been over the wall was 
harder to bear than the open disgrace 
would have been. Only a memory of her 
mother’s feelings and of Alene ’s senior 
honors kept Wee from proclaiming her- 
self their partner and walking out with 
them when Jean and Janet said good- 
by. Ruth Wellington had made her un- 
derstand that she had committed the fatal 
mistake of Prince Priggio. She was pay- 
ing the bitter penalty of being cleverer 
than other people. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE FAIRY GIFTS 

Doctor Stanton (Uncle Joe) smiled 
when Tumbleweed’s letter of confession 
came. It was signed “Prince Priggo-per 
Tumbleweed,” and in it she inquired quite 
gravely where the fairy gifts were and 
how she could use them. 

When the last querulous, sore-throated 
child had left the office, he sent his office 
girl to the nearest book-store for a copy of 
Lang’s story. He had not read it for 
some time; his personal interest in the 
story, together with the exquisite illus- 
trations, held him engrossed. The office 
girl had left and the noises of the big of- 
fice building had died down to the mere 
occasional sliding of an elevator door 
when he turned to the typewriter. 

98 


THE FAIRY GIFTS 


99 


“Dear Wee,” he wrote, “I’m sorry that 
you feel as if every one hated you, but it’s 
probably necessary before one discovers 
the fairy gifts or slays the firedrake. I 
am sending you a copy of the book itself, 
in case you have forgotten the story. The 
fairy gifts, you may remember, included 
a magic cloak — which made its wearer in- 
visible. It seems to me that for you the 
magic cloak will mean getting yourself out 
of the way, somehow — not trying at all to 
be 4 just yourself,’ as you say you have 
been doing — thinking more about other 
selves. They’re interesting, you know, 
Wee, really. And haven’t you been a bit 
prominent for a freshman ? That’s no go, 
you know! Try wearing the cloak and 
listening. 

“And the second fairy gift is the magic 
carpet that takes you anywhere. That 
you have, I know — imagination. Let it 
take you into other people’s countries. 
Remember, the girl who seems lordly to 
you is a senator’s daughter, who hasn’t any: 


100 


TUMBLEWEED 


mother and has had to play hostess all her 
life. Get on the carpet and fly to one of 
the functions she has to attend. And as 
for Chubby’s non-comprehension and too- 
eager attentiveness, let the carpet take you 
to the stuffy lonely hotel she’s spent all 
her years in. I don’t know Jean and Ja- 
net, but the carpet could probably show 
you what had made them tell the things 
that frightened you — only make that a fly- 
ing trip. 

“ And the third fairy gift was the purse 
that was never empty, no matter how 
much the prince took out. It’s to start 
filling that purse not with money, but with 
knowledge, that we all go to school, Wee. 
After all, you know, school ought to mean 
something more than good times. And 
fifty on a history quiz looks like an empty 
purse later on. 

“ There are other fairy gifts, the wish- 
ing cap for instance, but you’ll have to dis- 
cover them for yourself. But remember, 
little Princess Priggio, that when you be- 


THE FAIRY GIFTS 


101 


gin to use the fairy gifts, it’s going to 
take lots more courage and determination 
than just being clever took.” 

When the letter and the book came, 
Tumbleweed locked her door in order to 
insure a peaceful enjoyment of them. She 
looked up ruefully after she had read the 
letter. 

“I — I wanted to be cuddly-loved,” she 
said; “and I was just agreed with and 
grown-up scolded.” 

But the truth of the kind words and the 
memory of the lovely book stayed with her 
all the afternoon. Julie came in for a 
moment before dinner and picked up the 
book idly. 

“Why, it’s from father,” she said in 
surprise, as his card with the words “To 
the Princess Priggio” fell out from be- 
tween the pages. 

“Yes,” Tumbleweed answered non- 
chalantly from the closet. “It’s some 
sugar-coated medicine he sent me to take.” 


TUMBLEWEED 


102 

Julie did not understand; Tumbleweed 
had not intended that she should. 

“He never sends me any medicine,” she 
remarked after a moment. 

“Did you ever ask him for any?” Tum- 
bleweed asked. 

“I don’t need any!” 

“Oh, my word,” Tumbleweed confided 
to her rose party gown; “she doesn’t need 
any — and I need bottles and books full!” 

A moment later they started down to- 
gether for chapel. At the door Alene met 
them. 

“Miss Dayton wants you to sing to- 
night, Wee,” she said. “She just had a 
message a *few moments ago that a fa- 
mous Mr. Somebody from New York 
would be here to talk to us.” 

Tumbleweed looked distressed. “I 
don’t feel a bit like it,” she protested, as 
she started back for her music. “And it 
isn’t wearing the magic cloak at all.” 

When she came back and entered the 
chapel she was conscious of the unusual 


THE FAIBY GIFTS 


103 


loveliness of the room. At Miss Dayton’s 
suggestion red leaves from the woods had 
been brought and made into bowers sur- 
rounding the side lights. The softened 
glow filled the room. The girls, all in 
white, waited, eager, as always, for the 
unexpected. 

Tumbleweed made her way to the plat- 
form, a little shivery before this great man 
who looked so kindly at her. She sang 
well, but Alene looked at Kay with unsat- 
isfied eyes. 

“They’re lovely words,” she whispered, 
“and it’s beautiful music, and Wee looks 
like a fairy, but — ” 

Kay pressed her hand. The great man 
was beginning to talk. They moved over 
silently to make room for Tumbleweed. 
The great man said he was going to talk 
about prayer. Tumbleweed stifled a 
yawn. Of all uninteresting subjects — ex- 
cept missions! Well, at any rate, people’s 
talking about prayer didn’t make you un- 
comfortable and afraid to be alone in the 


104 


TUMBLEWEED 


dark for days for fear you’d get a call 
(whatever that might be) to go to China. 
Tumbleweed paid very little attention to 
what the great man was saying. She 
looked curiously at some girls who were 
taking notes. Then, all of a moment, she 
wished she had pen and paper. 

From the midst of many unheeded 
words, like the moon emerging for a mo- 
ment from hurrying clouds, came the 
statement : ‘ ‘ Prayer is upward wishing . 9 1 
Instantly Tumbleweed thought of the 
wishing cap. Was that what Uncle Joe 
meant ? Could prayer be one of the fairy 
gifts one must learn to use — the one that 
gave you the things your inmost soul de- 
sired? 

Well, she certainly didn’t have time to 
pray and she didn’t know how, she re- 
minded herself sharply. Besides, a wor- 
shiper of Pan does not pray. He runs 
and leaps and sings and loves. Prayer 
was sneaking and small and servile com- 
pared with the glory of wind-ruled woods. 


THE FAIRY GIFTS 


105 


Besides, it was hard enough to get used to 
wearing the magic cloak. One thing at a 
time. 

In the few moments before study hour 
Wee and Chubby and Katherine and 
Alene sat before the fire in the living- 
room. Save for them, the room was 
empty. The fire, unembarrassed by so 
small an audience, seemed to take them 
straight into its confidence. They sat re- 
laxed, musing happily. 

Kay broke the silence by some refer- 
ence to the speaker. 

“It must be wonderful to be as sure and 
strong and great and respected as he is,” 
she said. “What do you ’spose we’ll all 
be? Let’s everybody tell what she wants 
to be when she’s — thirty. You begin, 
Alene.” 

Without a moment’s hesitation came the 
frank, deep-voiced answer. 

“Somebody’s wife.” 

The girls laughed. That was like Alene. 

Chubby wanted to be an actress and 


106 


TUMBLEWEED 


wear furry cloaks and pearls in her hair. 
They waited a moment for Wee’s answer. 

“ Really, I don’t know what I want most 
to be,” she said. “I — I think it’s stingy 
to have only one life when you’d like to 
be a great singer and the matron of an 
orphan asylum, and a Bed Cross nurse and 
an author and — maybe — later on, 6 Some- 
body’s wife’ — all in one. How can you ?” 

Kay laughed. “ I hope you don’t go on 
adding to that list, Wee dear,” she said. 
“The only way out I can see is for you 
to be the actress instead of Chubby and 
have a try at them all.” 

“Oh, I’d like that, too.” 

Tumbleweed’s eyes were on the fire as 
they clamored for Kay’s confession. 

“I don’t know, either, what I’d like 
most to be,” she said slowly — “except that 
I’d like it to be something with girls. Oh 
• — I love girls. ’ ’ This little burst of enthu- 
siasm from self-contained Kay had a 
rare value. 

Wee had spurned a chair and was curled 


THE FAIRY GIFTS 


107 


up on the hearthrug. She turned now, 
suddenly, and put her arm on Katherine’s 
knee. 

“I have the nicest thinklet about you,” 
she said happily. 

“What ever in all the world is a think- 
let, Wee?” Alene asked. 

“Oh — I forgot you didn’t know. It’s 
just a little baby thought that isn’t grown 
up enough yet to run from one person’s 
mind to another. But I’ll try to grow this 
one up quick!” 

Her voice trailed of£ into its wonder 
zone as she began to talk. 

“It’s just that Kay ought to do some- 
thing — like the fire does,” she began, “be- 
cause she is like the fire. She draws 
every one to her and makes them remem- 
ber all the dear old good things and soft- 
ens the unpleasant ones and takes away 
everybody’s cross stupid thoughts and 
makes them happy and comfy. Well, I ’ve 
got to go study!” 

Tumbleweed hurried away, slightly 


108 


TUMBLEWEED 


discomfited by Kay’s evident embarrass- 
ment. The group she left around the fire 
was a very thoughtful one. 

Kay broke the silence. 

“ What Wee said is truer of her than of 
me,” she said. 

“What a dear child she is,” Alene said 
softly after a moment. “And yet she 
frightens me. She’s so absolutely at the 
mercy of everything she meets — not only 
friends, but — well, even fires.” 

For the next few months Wee tried, 
with very real earnestness, to wear the 
magic cloak. Her strained sincerity be- 
gan to function normally, like a muscle 
recovering from the strain of overuse. 
And her somewhat flashy popularity rip- 
ened into a few real friendships that sur- 
rounded her with that wonderful feeling 
of being loved for one’s self, a deeper and 
more lasting satisfaction than the star 
part had brought. 

Tumbleweed felt rewarded for all the 


THE FAIRY GIFTS 


109 


hard donnings of the magic cloak when 
the invitation to Ruth Wellington’s every- 
summer house-party came. She was so 
excited she could hardly wait for the last 
days of school to be over and as soon as 
they arrived at the Beach House, she 
raced Alene along the 'hard gray shore till 
they sank, breathless, on the rocks. 

“I never saw you so rapturously happy 
over anything in my life, Wee,” Alene 
said curiously. 

Tumbleweed was watching a gull that 
flashed through the air and then left a 
fairy trail in the drying sand. 

“It’s because I’ve felt, from the minute 
Ruth asked me, that she’d finally let me 
step out of the off-color class,” Wee an- 
swered, slightly embarrassed. “What 
color am I now, Alene?” 

Alene poked a sea-urchin with a bit of 
seaweed. Then she studied Wee. “Mostly 
pink and blue and gold,” she said. 

“No, I don’t mean my hair and eyes,” 
Tumbleweed explained. “Everybody has 


110 


TUMBLEWEED 


a color, not just the one they wear most, 
though sometimes it is that, if they’re 
clever enough to discover it. Now Kay’s 
navy-blue, you know she is, and Julie’s 
rose and Ruth is white. And — I think — 
you’re a beautiful green.” 

Alene laughed. “Jealous?” she ques- 
tioned. 

“Oh, no, not that. Just, well, growing 
and natural, like trees and things.” 

Tumbleweed picked up a shell and 
studied its soft gray lining. 

“And my mother,” she continued, “is 
like this — gray unless you hold it to the 
light and then — lavender, rose, blue, ir- 
idescent. Alene, do tell me what color I 
am — I don’t want to be just dull brown 
like a tumbleweed. I hate brown!” 

Alene hesitated. She bore witness to 
her year’s familiarity with Wee in her 
answer. 

“Probably I can’t make you see what 
I mean,” she said, “because I can’t al- 
ways word things. But you aren’t any 



What color am I now, Alene? 





















. 




) 

• • V * v ' • r.:S 









THE FAIRY GIFTS 


111 


definite color. You’re more like light — • 
motionful — perhaps if any color, silvery- 
blue. No, it isn’t that — it’s like the air- 
stretches of clearness — moving — the wind. 
£>h, I can’t say it.” 

Tumbleweed caught her breath. 
6 ‘ That’s the loveliest thing any one ever 
said to me, Alene — the very loveliest. If 
you knew how I used to love the wind ! I 
wish you didn’t have to outgrow loving 
things without any reason — I mean I wish 
you could keep on believing things.” 

Later she wondered if she had outgrown 
her love of the wind. She and Billy sailed 
through the whole house-party. Of course, 
it was occasionally necessary to walk or 
play tennis or dance, but, as Ruth Well- 
ington perceived their lean and hungry 
look every moment they were out of the 
sailboat, she left them more and more time 
for sailing. 

And there was so much to talk about! 
Billy and Tumbleweed had reached the 
age where, childhood not really so very 


112 


TUMBLEWEED 


far behind, one looks back at it as from 
across a great chasm and all its events 
take on a mystic splendor. 

Tumbleweed had climbed the rustic 
ladder to the little platform hid in the 
gnarled branches of the oak-tree in the 
woods behind the house. She was explor- 
ing the place which had been Ruth Well- 
ington’s playhouse in days gone by. 

“Doesn’t this remind you of our little 
tree-platform at home, Billy,” she called 
through the screening leaves, “the one 
where you kept me a prisoner when I 
wouldn’t tell you the secret ? Oh, Billy, ’ ’ 
she continued, as she lifted the cover of a 
box, “here’s a whole cupboard full of 
doll-dishes. Come on up.” 

Scorning the ladder, Billy swung him- 
self up by the branches until he sat beside 
her in the green intimacy of the little 
room. Falling in with her mood of remin- 
iscence, he began to talk. 

“I’ve always felt you didn’t tell me the 
real secret that time, Wee, did you? It 


THE FAIRY GIFTS 


113 


was something about Santa Claus you 
said, I remember.” 

4 ‘ That was only a part of it,” Tumble- 
weed answered musingly. “I used to 
have the queerest thoughts about the wind 
when I was a youngster, Billy. Being 
here — and sailing — and all, has brought 
them back. I used to feel that it was a — a 
— well, a personality somehow. My Fa- 
ther "Wind I used to call it. I was always 
looking for a father. I thought it blew 
good things into one and bad things out. 
It was a sort of fairy religion to me, I 
think. It’s too bad there isn’t a grown-up 
equivalent for believing in fairies.” 

“I’ve always remembered another 
thing about that winter,” Billy continued 
— “and that is when you said you wouldn’t 
marry a little boy.” 

They both laughed. 

“Bid I say that?” Tumbleweed asked. 
“You know I think it’s strange how much 
children think and talk about marriage. 
Really it’s lots more important to you 


114 


TUMBLEWEED 


when you’re ten than when you’re twenty, 
because it’s the only future that seems pos- 
sible then, I suppose. I don’t want to be 
married for ages and ages, do you, Billy ? ’ ’ 

“Not on your life! By the way, Wee, 
I don’t suppose you’ve noticed but I be- 
lieve Mr. Carman is — well” — he hesi- 
tated, man-like, over the romantic word — « 
“in love with Julie.” 

“Really !” Tumbleweed’s surprise had 
the sarcasm of extreme exaggeration. 
“Of course, no one could ever dream of 
that after last winter, after his asking to 
be invited to the house-party, after Julie’s 
sudden interest in all things housewifely. 
Stupid, I’ve known it for a year ! I’ve al- 
ways thought of Mr. Carman as Julie’s 
prince, even if he didn’t come riding on a 
white horse,” she added. 

“I don’t like the idea of marrying some 
one you’ve known only a short time. It 
seems to me you’d always have to be in- 
troducing and explaining and going 
back—” Billy protested. 


THE FAIRY GIFTS 


115 


“Oh, I do like it,” Tumbleweed inter- 
rupted. “Think if you’d ‘always known 
the person — he’d remember all the ridicu- 
lous things you ever did — when you had a 
dirty face and when you lost your temper. 
That would be impossible.” 

“It seems mighty strange to think of 
Julie getting married, doesn’t it?” Billy 
went on. “She’s a whole year younger 
than I am.” 

“And only a year older than I am,” 
Tmnbleweed answered. “Mercy, it gives 
you a queer feeling, doesn’t it — something 
like people dying — you never can tell 
when it’s going to strike close to home.” 

“Oh, I don’t think you need to worry,” 
Billy answered calmly. “It won’t strike 
you.” 

“Well, I’d like to know why not” — • 
Tumbleweed flashed back, suddenly an- 
gered in spite of her assertion that she 
didn’t want to be married for years and 
years. 

Billy hesitated a moment. 


116 


TUMBLEWEED 


“You aren’t enough like Ju,” he said 
at last. 

Tumbleweed laughed. 

“Well, there’s more than one marriage 
pattern, Billy,” she said. “And the girl 
doesn’t always have to be cut the same 
length and breadth as Julie.” 

Through the stillness of the afternoon 
a familiar whistle sounded. 

“That’s Carman signaling for me, 
now,” Billy said, parting the branches to 
look toward the house. “There’s a storm 
coming. I think you’d better go inside, 
Wee.” 

Tumbleweed glanced indifferently at 
the sky. 

“I can run for the house when it 
breaks,” she said. “Good-by.” 

Left alone she sat on, her eyes on a lit- 
tle patch of sky framed with branches like 
a window. She was strangely excited by 
the thought of Julie and Mr. Carman be- 
ing married. She wondered if they would 
have any children, children who would 


THE FAIRY GIFTS 


117 


play together as she and Billy and Julie 
had done. Would there ever be another 
little wind girl, she wondered. Tumble- 
weed sighed. Probably there wouldn’t. 
What a strange child she must have been ! 

A sudden blast of wind, herald of the 
coming storm, struck the tree. Tumble- 
weed sat on. She gasped a little and cov- 
ered her face with her hands when the lad- 
der — her only means of descent — was 
swept away. Realizing her danger, she 
stood up and flattened herself against the 
tree, clasping her hands with the unbreak- 
able grip Billy had taught her around the 
largest branch within reach. Gasping for 
breath between the fierce puffs of wind, 
expecting every moment that the frail 
platform would be swept out from under 
her, she clung to the branch, hoping fran- 
tically that Billy would remember her, 
shuddering away from the dizzy leaf- 
paved spaces below her. 

No help came. It was evidently to be a 
fight alone, Tumbleweed thought. Her 


118 


TUMBLEWEED 


arms were torn and bleeding from the 
scraping of the rough bark ; her hair had 
slipped from its pins and combs and 
streamed like a mermaid’s. The old blue 
fire kindled in her eyes. Vaguely she felt 
this to be the battle royal between herself 
and that something she hesitated to name 
— that something which had chosen the 
wind for its symbol. Well, to the victor 
the spoils! 

Half an hour later, when the fury of the 
storm had spent itself and Tumbleweed 
was just releasing her numbed fingers, 
Billy remembered her. Unconquered, she 
climbed down the ladder he brought. 

“I’m wet enough to start rivers flowing 
through to China,” she said. “Where is 
everybody, Billy? If they’re in the living- 
room, I’m going to sneak up the back way. 
Vou see,” teasingly, “I might want to 
marry some one in there some day and I 
never could if they’d seen me like this.” 

Laughingly, she passed over Billy’s 
violent self-accusation. But she followed 


THE HAIRY GIFTS 


119 


his prescription of a hot bath and a few 
hours’ sleep. 

When she awoke, she could hear Julie 
playing softly down below. A glance at 
her wrist watch brought a rueful little 
frown to her face as she noticed her 
scratched arms. 

“I look as if I’d been in a prize fight,” 
she said disgustedly. 

She dressed quickly and went down the 
stairs toward the cheerful firelit living- 
room with its bark walls. But half-way 
down she paused. Julie was still playing 
softly, dreamily. She looked very lovely ; 
firelight always “ blended” Julie as Tum- 
bleweed said — softened and harmonized 
the vivid color of her dark hair and her 
pink cheeks, even her clothes. 

Tumbleweed suddenly sat down on the 
steps. She was reminded — this day of 
reminiscence — of another day in the long 
ago when Julie had been beautiful. 

“Oh, I want to be beautiful,” Tumble- 
weed said again to herself. “It isn’t that 


120 


TUMBLEWEED 


I want to take Ju’s loveliness away,” she 
protested angrily to a mocking little voice 
inside her that said: “ Jealous Cat!” “I 
don’t see why every girl can’t be beauti- 
ful,” she mused, “just while they’re girls. 
I’m so sick of being consoled with ‘ hand- 
some is as handsome does’ and being told 
that neatness and an erect carriage and all 
that makes beauty. They’re just sops, 
that’s all — that the poor unbeautiful peo- 
ple have invented to comfort themselves. 
Well, I’m glad I’m not that kind of a w r eak 
fool. Mother and Uncle Joe would say 
big ears and the shape of your nose didn’t 
matter — but they do. I wonder why 
grown-ups tell lies !” 

“What on earth are you doing on the 
stairs, Wee?” Billy asked, suddenly 
catching sight of her from below. 

“Beminiscing some more,” she an- 
swered, as she went down, holding out her 
bruised arms for his inspection. The 
sight of her arms hurt Billy in a strange 


THE FAIRY GIFTS 


121 


new way. Boy-like, lie grew gruff under 
its influence. 

“If you look as bad as this I wonder 
what the other fellow looks like,” he said. 

Suddenly Tumbleweed felt that there 
had been another, something that had done 
its best to persuade her of its power. Well, 
she had defied it — this wind. Tumble- 
weed was still young enough to believe in 
defiance. Perhaps now she would be rid 
of these scruples that had made her 
vaguely uncomfortable last year. School 
had not yet taught Tumbleweed coopera- 
tion. But she forgot the battle royal in 
which she had been victor, forgot even the 
eager wish to be beautiful, when Julie, 
with unwonted tenderness, drew her down 
on the piano bench beside her. 

“Wee,” Julie’s fingers still struck soft 
chords : “I hoped you’d come down before 
the rest. I — I’m the happiest girl in the 
world to-night.” She held out the fourth 
finger of her left hand, white and ringless. 


122 


TUMBLEWEED 


“As soon as the house-party’s over,” she 
said, “there’s going to be a diamond 
there.” 

“Oh, Julie,” — Tumbleweed’s kiss held 
something of awe — “Mr. Carman put the 
diamonds in your eyes first,” was all she 
had time to whisper softly, as Ruth Well- 
ington came down the stairs. 


CHAPTER iVII 


LIFE WITH A CAPITAL L 

The months after Julie’s engagement 
sped very; quickly for Tumbleweed. Her 
second year at school was full of work and 
play, ideally mingled. She was very 
happy when Mr. Carman became a mem- 
ber of Maplewood faculty and she began 
to take lessons from him. Her allotted 
hour in his studio was very likely to dou- 
ble itself. There were always so many 
things to ask him. 

All during the summer before her junior 
year, Tumbleweed practised faithfully. 
In the back of her mind was an unrecog- 
nized desire to sing better than Julie, and 
get the leading part in the operetta. She 
was sure she had no other rival. 

But she need not have worked so hard, 

123 


124 


TUMBLEWEED 


Julie had been having too gay a time, and 
when school opened the doctor ordered a 
year’s rest. So Tumbleweed emerged 
from the try-outs triumphant, her head 
full of costumes and plans. 

During the months that preceded active 
rehearsals, Mr. Carman was trying to pre- 
pare Tumbleweed for her part. Her les- 
son hour was late in the day, so arranged 
that they might neither of them be inter- 
rupted. Mr. Carman felt a sort of fam- 
ily pride in Tumbleweed’s distinguish- 
ing herself. He grew to recognize her 
moods as quickly as her clothes. 

One gray afternoon in the late fall she 
hurried into his studio wrapped about in 
her party cloak. 

“I’m going to a dinner-dance at Billy’s 
new club in the city,” she explained, as 
she turned slowly around for him to ad- 
mire her. 

“.You’re looking lovely, Wee,” Mr. Car- 
man said slowly, “but” — he hesitated — • 
“it’s too grown up,” he added. 


LIFE WITH A CAPITAL L 125 


“Oh, how nice!” Tumbleweed clasped 
her hands in a very ungrown-up gesture 
and ran to the long mirror to look at her- 
self. “Do I look experienced V ’ she asked 
anxiously. “I feel about ten — I’m 
scared.” 

Mr. Carman laughed. “I can’t see why 
you’re so eager to grow up, Wee,” he said. 
“You’re ever so much more attractive the 
way you are.” 

Tumbleweed’s heart was beating fast, 
as it always did when Mr. Carman began 
to talk in this personal vein. She was dis- 
appointed when he dropped it and began 
the lesson. It would have pleased her 
mightily had she known that, watching 
her, he had momentarily regretted his de- 
cision not to attend the dinner-dance. 
There was a strange something about Mr. 
Carman that made Tumbleweed instinc- 
tively try to be her most charming self 
when he was near. 

A few weeks after the dance, the re- 
hearsals for the operetta began in real 


126 


TUMBLEWEED 


earnest. Mr. Carman worked the girls 
hard, so they stole every moment they 
could get for recreation. 

One afternoon when he was delayed, 
they had all gathered on the stage, waiting. 

“Somebody play,” Tumbleweed sug- 
gested, “and we’ll dance.” 

With customary obligingness, Kay be- 
gan a waltz. Tumbleweed flung her right 
arm around the girl nearest her and 
stepped backward in the first movement of 
a waltz. She talked laughingly to her 
partner in a deep burlesque of a man’s 
voice as she guided her around the stage. 

Mr. Carman was not familiar with the 
custom of girls’ schools where it is neces- 
sary for some of the girls always to take 
the part of men. 

“Miss Warner!” he called sharply, as 
he came, down the aisle. He always called 
her Miss Warner in public and it always 
gave Tumbleweed a pleasant, secret feel- 
ing since she knew that the first time they 
were alone he would lapse again into the 


LIFE WITH A CAPITAL L 127 


familiar “Wee.” She finished with a 
mock bow to her partner and then walked 
across the stage to him. 

He spoke in a low tone of vexation. “I 
don’t want you dancing that way again,” 
he said shortly. “It will spoil your danc- 
ing for the operetta. By the way, Miss 
Malcolm is ready to begin to teach you the 
dance. And I want to see you in the stu- 
dio after the rehearsal.” 

He dismissed her with a curt nod. 
“Whew, but I’m in for it,” she confided 
to Kay, as the chorus trooped past her. 
Her heart was beating fast with excite- 
ment when, an hour later, she tapped at 
his door, 

Mr. Carman came to admit her, some 
pictures in his hand. As she entered he 
drew a big armchair before the fire and 
brought her a cup of tea. He had forgot- 
ten the incident of the dancings 

“I had a letter from Julie,” he ex- 
plained, “and I thought you’d like to hear 
part of it. Then, too, I found some old 


128 


TUMBLEWEED 


pictures and there’s one that seems to me 
would be an ideal costume for you in the 
third act.” 

Tumbleweed took the pictures from 
his hand and laid them on the arm of the 
chair. Then she lifted the fragile cup so 
that the firelight shone through its amber 
contents. 

“I thought I was going to be scolded,” 
she said with a dreamy sigh. “ Why don’t 
you want me to be a man when I dance ?” 

“Because I don’t want you to be a man 
ever, Wee, ” he answered. 6 6 It — it doesn’t 
suit you.” 

He was conscious, as he watched her, of 
the peculiar abandon with which she gave 
herself to the fire ; it filled him with a sense 
of comfort. All the dulness of the room 
was chased away by the gleam of the light 
on her hair; the point of fire where it 
caught the matrix on the little finger of 
the hand that held the cup; the soft 
rounded sheen of the silk-clad ankle that 
was stretched toward the fire. In the si- 


LIFE WITH A CAPITAL L 129 


lence, she seemed to supply something 
mysterious and satisfying — something the 
room had lacked before she came. 

When she spoke, she was only a school- 
girl again — a schoolgirl in a blue sailor- 
suit. 

“But somebody has to take the man’s 
part,” she said. “I always have, because 
lots of the girls won’t. Why shouldn’t I, 
as much as Alene and Kay?” 

“Because you’re too feminine, Wee. 
You’re too charming the way you are. 
Now, let’s look at the pictures!” 

Wee’s heart beat with suffocating speed 
during the moments that followed. She 
did not question the wild delirious happi- 
ness that filled her. Mr. Carman thought 
her charming and had told her so. It was 
as if the hard little bud of her desire to 
be beautiful had suddenly opened trem- 
bling white petals to a kindly world. 

The pristine glory of it turned Tumble- 
weed into a freshman again ; planning 
pranks is an effective safety-valve. By 


130 


TUMBLEWEED 


spring, the girls in the Hall had grown 
stoically used to awaking five minutes be- 
fore the breakfast bell to find their shoes 
on the fire escape, their tooth paste in the 
study room. 

Tumbleweed vacillated between such 
babyish pranks as these and the great awe 
that filled her as the doors of literature 
swung open on what seemed to her as for- 
bidden places as the secret room where 
Blue Beard’s wives hung. She was feel- 
ing the father-need again, as much as she 
had felt it in little-girl days. In the mo- 
ments when she was most troubled by the 
contradictions between her simple exist- 
ence and this strange complicated world 
she was beginning to see, she fell to ask- 
ing Mr. Carman questions. It has a pe- 
culiar fascination, this talking about Life, 
(with a capital L, as if it were some de- 
tached species in which one had only a 
scientific interest) . Unconsciously Tum- 
bleweed and Mr. Carman drifted into a 
dangerous intimacy. 


LIFE WITH A CAPITAL L 131 


The operetta was to be given on the sec- 
ond of April. The last night of March, 
though Tumbleweed knew she ought to 
be getting her beauty sleep, she smuggled 
as many girls as she could lay hands on 
into her room and laid her plan for April 
Fooling the Hall before them. 

When a safe amount of time after 
“ lights out” had elapsed, Tumbleweed 
and Alene, balancing a chair between them, 
crept down the fire escape. It was a 
dangerous proceeding when one was shak- 
ing with laughter. But at last they reach- 
ed the ground and by dint of much effort, 
managed to climb in the pantry window, 
which Tumbleweed had surreptitiously 
unlocked earlier in the evening. 

Alene stayed behind to draw the chair 
in after her while Tumbleweed crept for- 
ward through the large dining-room to 
unlock the door into the hall and admit the 
girls who were waiting on the other side. 

The tables were set for breakfast. Si- 
lently the girls fell to work, slipping the 


132 


TUMBLEWEED 


napkins from their rings and tying them 
together by the corners into long ropes. 
Because Tumbleweed was the lightest 
and quickest, it fell to her lot to tie the 
ends of the festoons. She jumped up on 
the table and fastened them to the chains 
of the great bowl that held the electric 
bulbs in the center of the room. A few 
moments in each corner, fastening the op- 
posite ends and, with the securing of an 
April Fool poster to the fireplace, the 
decorations were complete. 

A sound in the pantry sent the girls 
scurrying, wrapped in their dark robes, 
each one to her own room. The chair, 
which they had forgotten in their hurry, 
remained behind as damning evidence. 

The next morning when the girls, with 
appreciative giggles, had taken their seats, 
Miss Dayton, the dean, arose. She spoke 
at length of the childishness of the trick 
and pointed with disgust to the gray marks 
on the center table where Wee’s slippers 
had left their telltale prints. But, puerile 


LIFE WITH A CAPITAL L 133 


as all this was, she said, it was as nothing 
compared with what had gone on in the 
kitchen. Tumbleweed shot a quick ques- 
tioning look at Alene, and Kay nudged her 
neighbor, Helen Kaymond, under the 
table. But Alene shrugged her shoulders, 
and Helen answered Kay with a look of 
blank surprise. Their operations had ex- 
tended no farther than the pantry. 

Miss Dayton went on to explain that all 
the staple articles in the kitchen had been 
mixed — sugar with salt, coffee with tea 
and pepper — and that, consequently, it 
was impossible to serve any breakfast. 
The faces that had been trying vainly to 
hide their dimples grew long at that. For- 
tunately, Miss Dayton said, a clue had 
come to light, a chair from one of the 
senior rooms had been found in the 
pantry. Until the senior and her friends 
who had perpetrated this outrageous joke 
should confess, all the seniors would have 
to suffer the loss of their senior honors. 

The moment Miss Dayton had left the 


134 


TUMBLEWEED 


room, babel arose. This was the most ex- 
citing, the most mysterious thing that had 
happened for years. No one knew any- 
thing about it, but their ignorance only 
set them to chattering the faster. Little 
groups of seniors buzzed angrily about. 
Kay and Alene and Helen Raymond and 
Tumbleweed, with a signal, summoned 
the girls who had helped decorate the 
dining-room. They were all frankly sur- 
prised at the turn affairs had taken. No 
one of them had been near the kitchen. 
Surmise after surmise fell from their ex- 
cited lips. The class bell rang with no 
solution reached, save that they should fol- 
low their first impulse, go to Miss Dayton, 
claim the chair and tell her the truth. 
“But she’ll never believe we didn’t do the 
mixing, too,” Tumbleweed whispered to 
Kay as they sat in a stiff line awaiting 
Miss Dayton’s leisure. 

It was a trying ordeal, though Alene, 
who had been chosen spokesman since the 


LIFE WITH A CAPITAL L 135 


chair belonged to her, did her part with 
customary frankness and dignity. Miss 
Dayton was convinced that the girls, if in- 
nocent themselves, knew more than they 
were telling. The cross-questioning went 
on till the middle of the morning. If they 
had thought to ease their consciences, they 
were mistaken. When the door closed be- 
hind them, they were more mystified than 
ever and the seniors were no nearer re- 
instatement. 

* ‘ Heavens,’ ’ Wee said wearily, one hand 
pressed to her throbbing head as she turn- 
ed to go to her German class, “I’ll ac- 
knowledge anything, even a murder, if she 
starts questioning me again. I don’t know 
wdiat I did last night.” 

“Well, I do,” Alene answered, with the 
calm assurance Tumbleweed coveted; 
“don’t worry, Wee, and keep still about it. 
See you at noon!” 

“If Judgment Day’s going to be any- 
thing like this,” Wee thought, as she en- 


136 


TUMBLEWEED 


tered her recitation room, “I’ll fly to the 
goats right straight off and avoid the ques- 
tions/ ’ 

But a struggle with sinuous German re- 
flexives and a glad hour in the sunny gym- 
nasium brought Wee to lunch a little dis- 
heveled to be sure, but pink and excited 
and refreshed. A dangerous color began 
to burn in her cheeks when she saw that 
the senior table was disbanded and the 
girls scattered here, there and everywhere 
through the dining-room. When the meal 
was nearly at an end she rose, without even 
a glance at Miss Dayton for permission. 
An ecstatic little thrill ran around the 
room; every girl leaned forward eagerly 
to catch her words. She simply announced 
a meeting of the junior class of which she 
was president, to be held immediately 
after luncheon. The incident passed un- 
reproved for she was within her rights in 
making the announcement. But she had 
never before omitted the courtesy of ask- 
ing Miss Dayton’s permission. It was 


LIFE WITH A CAPITAL L 137 


only a straw, but it showed which way the 
wind blew; the girls did not intend 
calmly to accept this ruling against the 
seniors. 

After the junior class, at their meeting, 
had decided to protest against the way the 
seniors were being treated, Wee had an- 
other interview, this time in her official 
capacity, with Miss Dayton. She was 
weary to the point of brilliant eyes and 
flaming cheeks when she came out. But 
she had a delicious thrill at being on the 
inside. Not for worlds would any school- 
girl forfeit the pain and weariness of her 
scrapes, least of all Tumbleweed, who 
loved thrills! And never is a schoolgirl 
so popular as when she is figuring as hero- 
ine of a clash with the authorities. 

Wee was put to bed as soon as she had 
told the story of her interview. She tried 
her best to respect Miss Dayton’s con- 
fidence but things would leak out, and be- 
fore she crossed the threshold of her own 
room, every eager girl in the building 


138 


TUMBLEWEED 


knew that Miss Dayton had practically 
promised to restore the seniors, not be- 
cause of Wee’s visit, but because she had 
begun to suspect that the maids had caused 
the trouble in the kitchen. 

Wee so thoroughly enjoyed playing the 
heroine, having Chubby’s cool, love-taught 
hands stroke her head and Kay hook her 
into her dress for dinner, that she felt 
completely recovered when she saw the 
seniors back in their old places and 
listened to Miss Dayton’s little explana- 
tory speech. 

'f’here was so much to talk about that 
she lingered in the dining-room until she 
remembered the dress rehearsal, then, 
hurry as she would, she was late. 

When she finally slipped through the 
scenery on to the stage she heard Mr. Car- 
man inquiring in no very gentle terms for 
her. With that queer impulse to eaves- 
drop which every human being shares at 
times with every other, she stopped for a 
moment as Alene told him briefly about 


LIFE WITH A CAPITAL L 139 


the excitement of the day and Wee’s part 
in it. 

Mr. Carman was irritated. 

“Miss Warner ought to know better 
than to get mixed up in such things just 
before the operetta/’ he said. “But you 
never can depend on girls. Any one would 
know she’d do the usual thing. She’s just 
the type!” 

“Just the type” — the words burned 
themselves into Wee’s proudly-poised 
head as she walked forward. A little of 
the feeling that had urged her to try to be 
“just herself” when she was a freshman, 
made the words sting. She had long ago 
confided the Prince Priggio story to Alene. 
So, as she passed her, she whispered — 

“ ‘ Just the type’ — I don’t believe I’ll 
wear the magic cloak any more.” 

Alene squeezed her hand. “It’s better 
to be a type than a freak, anyway, Wee — 
•like the fishy thing in zoology.” 

In the moment before her first song, 
Wee had time to remember that it was the 


140 


TUMBLEWEED 


strong animal, true to type, that survived. 
But — it was a whimsical little turn of 
thought that changed Mr. Carman into a 
scientist — it was the freak, after all, that 
interested the experimenter most. Wee 
did not realize how habitual this turning 
of thought to Mr. Carman was becoming. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE OPERETTA 

Tumbleweed slept, but at the expense 
of exhausting dreams. When she dressed 
the next morning, she was more tired than 
when she had gone to bed. Kay came in 
to try to hurry her down to breakfast. 

“I don’t care if I never get anything to 
eat,” she answered wearily. “I’m so 
tired , Kay. Why doesn’t some one invent 
a mind-switch that you can throw over like 
those in a launch or automobile and stop 
all the thoughts buzzin’ round in your 
head? I’ve had nightmares all night and 
I feel as if they’d been real horses and had 
tramped me black and blue!” 

The dull tired feeling stayed with her 
all day and left only when the excitement 
141 


142 


TUMBLEWEED 


of the evening crowded it out. The bustle 
behind the scenes revived her. 

“It’s such frighteny-fun to hear them 
swishin’ out there beyond the curtain,” she 
whispered to Chubby. “Are you sure 
there’s enough rouge on my cheek? — my 
lashes are just heavy with paint.” She 
peeped into the mirror at this strangely 
unnatural Tumbleweed with her great 
blue eyes and red lips, her quaint gown 
and long flaxen braids. As the orchestra 
began to play, she drove the girls toward 
the stage with the silver cords of her long 
girdle and hid, eagerly expectant, behind 
a flat tree trunk to await her cue. 

It went famously, the first act. While 
the scenes were being changed she fluttered 
around the dressing-room like a little 
silver and white bird, whispering to Alene 
that Mr. Carman had been pleased with 
her singing — tucking one of Billy’s roses 
into Kay’s hair. 

“I want to be an actress, too, forever 


THE OPERETTA 


143 


and ever,” she confided to Chubby. u It’s 
such fun to wear paint!” 

But before the second act was over, she 
changed her mind. The tired sick feeling 
of the afternoon came rolling back like 
great waves, threatening to cover her. As 
she sang her last song, the trees of the 
garden stretched long menacing arms to- 
ward her and the smile on her lips was as 
artificial as the color in her cheeks. A 
moment after the curtain went down, Kay 
found her in a crumpled heap at the door 
of the dressing-room. Consternation 
reigned until some one opened a window 
and brought water. By the time the 
aromatic spirits of ammonia arrived, 
Tumbleweed was standing up, brushing 
off her skirt, fiercely angry. 

“I didn’t faint, Katherine Moore,” she 
said — “I — I — tripped on my skirt. And 
if any one tells Mr. Carman I fainted I’ll 
— I’ll — ” she paused with a dark gesture. 
She could think of no threat bad enough. 


144 


TUMBLEWEED 


“Now somebody get my costume I We’ve 
wasted enough time already, standing 
round!” 

She moved toward the mirror, but Alene 
put out her hand. 

“You’re not going to play the next act, 
Wee,” she said quietly. 

“Alene Thompson, you get out of my 
way! I’m going to play the next act if it 
kills me. Do you think I’ll have people 
saying I’m a weak little fool — a quitter — 
that I spoiled things ? Alene, if you don’t 
get out of my way, I’ll scream and scream 
and start a panic and people’ll get crushed 
and die!” 

They had seen her in a towering rage 
like this only once or twice. Objections 
fell away before her. 

“She certainly seems to have energy 
enough for anything,” Kay said to Alene 
when Tumbleweed, in her most beautiful 
costume with an extra supply of rouge to 
hide her pale cheeks, had swept haughtily 
past them. 


THE OPERETTA 


145 


Tumbleweed got through the dance, 
through the emotional climax, and right 
up to the final song before the dizzy sick 
feeling returned. To the intense annoy- 
ance of Mr. Carman she did not go to the 
front of the stage as she began to sing. She 
disregarded his signals and the surprise 
of the chorus. She dared not leave the 
rustic bench. Once or twice she leaned 
on it ; the solidity steadied her. The mo- 
ments of crisis passed and she stepped for- 
ward just before the curtain fell on the 
grand finale. Once or twice it was raised 
for smiles and bows to answer the ap- 
plause out beyond — then the blessed com- 
fort of Kay’s and Alene’s supporting 
arms. But she was not to rest yet. Mr. 
Carman stood before her. 

“You sang very well, Miss Warner,” he 
said formally — then, losing his careful 
self-control: “Why on earth didn’t you 
come forward instead of hugging that 
bench at the last?” 

They had left the stage by this time and 


146 TUMBLEWEED 

were walking up the aisle of the fast- 
emptying hall. Tumbleweed looked at 
him strangely for a moment. 

“I — was afraid to — afraid I’d fall,” she 
answered simply. 4 4 You see I — fainted 
once between acts.” 

“Wee!” He made her sit down. 4 4 Do 
you feel sick now ? Can I get you some- 
thing?” He was all solicitude, but she 
smiled a no to each of his questions. 

4 4 There’s only one thing you can do for 
me,” she said. 4 4 Tell me, honestly, did I 
spoil the play — I tried so hard ” The 
weary little emphasis of the word made 
Mr. Carman feel he would like to carry 
her like a sleepy child to her room and 
tuck her into bed. 

4 4 You didn’t spoil the play — you made 
it, ’ ’ he said. 4 4 Now I ’m going to send Miss 
Dayton to your room to see that you don’t 
talk all night and go to bed like a good 
child.” 

He smiled at her ecstatic little 4 4 Oh, 


THE OPERETTA 


147 


thank you — I’m glad.” After she had 
said good night and left him, he sat on for 
a few moments alone. Then he went home 
and wrote to Julie. 


CHAPTER IX 


IN LOVE WITH LOVE 

Hek senior year, in place of being a 
crowning glory as it is supposed in books 
to be, was rather a lonely one for Wee. 
She missed Kay and Alene at every 
step. She had pressed the sweetness out 
of student activities and pranks before the 
last year began, so she turned as a last 
resort to studying. To her surprise she 
found it really interesting — almost as in- 
teresting as the freshmen whom she view- 
ed with amusement across the chasm of the 
years that separated her from them. 

One afternoon she looked up from the 
last page of an Elizabethan tragedy to find 
the study room deserted save for herself 
and Dorothy Armitage, a freshman who 
was one of her particular friends. 

With a little grimace at the word “ Si- 
148 


IN LOVE WITH LOVE 149 


lence” in large letters under the clock, 
Tumbleweed leaned across the table. 

“Are you going to study a hole right 
through your big book, Dot?” she asked. 

Dorothy pushed a preoccupied hand 
through her hair. 

“ ‘The desire of the moth for the star’ 
comma 

‘Of the day for the morrow’ comma 
‘ The devotion to something afar 
From the sphere of our sorrow’ period,” 

she repeated, pronouncing the punctua- 
tion as if it were a part of the poetry and 
scanning the whole like a Latin lesson. 
Suddenly the book whizzed down the 
length of the long study table and fell with 
fluttering pages and a bang to the floor. 

Then she looked across at Tumbleweed 
reflectively, her blue eyes as calm as a 
cherub’s. 

“I hate poetry,” she said, “and that 
book’s ‘the sphere of my sorrow.’ ” 


150 


TUMBLEWEED 


Tumbleweed laughed. Suddenly a 
walk with Dot Armitage seemed very 
attractive. 

“It is bad,” she said consolingly. 
“English I is enough to make you lose 
your mind. Pick your book up and come 
on out for a walk with me ! Oh, Dot,” as 
the book was lifted, “it’s all broken and 
wrinkled!” 

Dorothy glanced at it nonchalantly. 

“Something had to get wrinkled,” she 
said. “I’d rather it was my book than my 
face. I had five Virgils last year in high 
school. They were a sight — but I came 
out pink and white. You see Latin is a 
special enemy of mine.” 

She might have been saying it was a spe- 
cial friend, from the sweetness of her 
smile when she mentioned it. She pow- 
dered her nose daintily, slipped into her 
sweater, and together they left the room. 

Dot’s easy philosophy fascinated Tum- 
bleweed to whom life had never been 


IN LOVE WITH LOVE 151 


easy, who had always refused to take it on 
easy payments. She felt suddenly young- 
er, less sophisticated, than the freshman 
who walked beside her. But a chance 
question of Dorothy’s turned the scales 
again. It’s queer how many ages one can 
be in half an hour I 

“Is it true that you seniors read per- 
fectly shocking stuff in English IY — • 
dreadfully plain love-stories, I mean ; you 
know, the spicy kind? Peggy said she 
borrowed a book of Ellen’s the other day 
and it had the most thrilling play in it. 
We’re all wild to read them. Won’t you 
let me take yours, Wee?” 

“What do you want to read it for, 
Dot?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, exactly. Because 
it ’s — well — life , I guess. ’ ’ 

“It isn’t life,” Tumbleweed said 
quickly, though when the words were out, 
she felt a certain doubt of their truth. 
What did she know about life ? 


152 


TUMBLEWEED 


“Oh, yes, it is,” Dot said calmly. “And 
I’m going to find out every single thing I 
can about it.” 

“Oh, Dot, I wish you wouldn’t. It’s — 
it’s dangerous!” Tumbleweed hesitated 
a moment. She was struggling for a solu- 
tion of one of the big problems of school 
life. “It’s like the signs down-town, Dot,” 
she said, “the signs that say ‘no parking 
here.’ It isn’t any safer to let your 
thoughts stop at — well, at the things you 
mentioned, than to park your car between 
the ‘no parking’ signs.” 

Dot was silent for a moment. ‘ ‘ But you 
have to — to know about things — about 
life,” she said a trifle defiantly. 

“Yes,” — Tumbleweed answered slow- 
ly — “just as you have to pass the ‘no park- 
ing’ signs if you’re going to get anywhere. 
But you don ’t have to stop. I — I wish you 
wouldn’t stop, Dot.” 

Their talk drifted to other things. Their 
climb for apples, and their race home for 
dinner had driven all thought of their 


IN LOVE WITH LOVE 153 


earlier conversation from Tumbleweed’s 
mind when Dorothy, all gold and blue, in 
a wonderful Japanese kimono, slipped 
into Wee’s room. 

When she saw who it was, Tumbleweed 
flushed and closed her book. She had been 
reading the love scene between Lucy and 
Richard in the Ordeal of Richard Feverel. 

6 6 How lovely you look, Dot ! ” she said. 

Dorothy bent over to whisper in Tum- 
bleweed’s ear. 

“I just came to tell you,” she said, “that 
I remembered the ‘no parking here,’ so 
I’m staying home to-night instead of go- 
ing to hear the last chapter of On the 
Brink” 

Dot was gone before Tumbleweed 
could answer. So the freshmen were read- 
ing On the Brink at their Friday even- 
ing parties ! She shrugged her shoulders, 
and opened her book. Then she suddenly 
realized that she was reading the love 
scene for the fifth time. It appealed to her 
sense of humor. 


154 


TUMBLEWEED 


“We’re all alike,” she said, “ every one 
of us — from the freshmen reading On the 
Brink to the seniors reading Meredith. 
We’re all trying to understand it — love. 
We’re all in love with love.” 

The idea pleased her and she thought on 
about it. Then her eyes fell on some roses 
that had come from Billy — the first he had 
ever sent her without the excuse of a 
dance. She drew two of the long thorny 
stems from the vase, wiped them carefully, 
pinned a card to them and stood for a 
moment with her pen in her hand. Then 
she wrote “To the Girl Who Doesn’t Park 
Her Thoughts,” and leaving her room 
fastened them to Dorothy Armitage’s 
door-knob. 

“I hope it will be a solution for her,” 
Tumbleweed thought as she slowly un- 
dressed, “but everything like that only 
lasts for a while — nothing really lasts. 
This is the unstablest world ! I wonder if 
Mr. Carman will be at the Thanksgiving 
dance. Of course Julie ’ll ask him.” Turn- 


IN LOVE WITH LOVE 155 


bleweed sighed. He and Julie were at 
the theater that night she knew. She felt 
very miserable and neglected. She won- 
dered if he kissed Julie good night. She 
smiled into the darkness as she remem- 
bered her lesson the day before. She had 
been practising an anthem with him and 
somehow the sight of herself, tall and slen- 
der in her white dress, with the solemn 
music, as the mirror reflected it all, had 
made her think of church. 

“I look just like a candle/ ’ she had said, 
whimsically lifting her arms above her 
head and moving her clasped hands to imi- 
tate the flicker of a flame. “Will you let 
me be one at your wedding ?” 

For just one little moment she had 
thought he was going to kiss her. She 
wondered if he had meant to — if Julie felt 
like that when he did. Then with a fright- 
ened little gasp she burrowed deep into her 
pillow as if to escape the sudden piercing 
sweetness of the thought that came to her. 
If he only had kissed her ! She loved him, 


156 


TUMBLEWEED 


loved him, loved him. She loved the way 
he praised her and the way he scolded her ! 
So this was love ! At last she was at one 
with all the great souls of the earth, — she 
knew the meaning of life. She was wrap- 
ped about with the kindling wonder of it ; 
the music of the spheres was but an echo of 
the solemn melodies that came to her 
through the darkness. There was neither 
time nor space for her : this was eternity. 
To love was to live. The measured chant 
of the Te Deum laudamus sounded in her 
ears. She too, at last, might join “the 
glorious company, the goodly fellowship, 
the noble army . 9 9 Of course he must never 
know. He was Julie’s man! But one 
could love, just love and suffer, suffer 
gloriously. “The noble army of the mar- 
tyrs” — there was her place, among them. 
She would hide her suffering; she would 
take it down to her grave with her. The 
gray years stretched ahead of her, rose-lit 
by anticipation of her sacrifices, her 
sufferings for love. This was a god worth 


IN LOVE WITH LOVE 157 


dying for, tlie only god she knew anything 
about ! 

“The desire of the moth for the star.” 
Shelley knew what he was talking about. 
She was the moth trying her wings — and 
love was the star. Tumbleweed had for- 
gotten that a candle-flame appears as a 
star to the moth until his wings are 
charred and useless, while the real stars 
shine cool overhead ! 

In the months that followed, the circles 
about the candle grew smaller and smaller. 
There were times when Tumbleweed 
wished she could throw herself into the 
flame and be done with it all. At other 
times she made a feeble effort to escape 
from the enticing light. Eeal study proved 
her one friend — and even this friend was 
fickle, for all things speak the language of 
love to him who loves. 

She avoided Mr. Carman as much as 
possible save for an occasional time when 
she could not resist playing with fire. She 
anticipated the end of school with mixed 


158 


TUMBLEWEED 


emotions; joy at the thought of escaping 
the thousand reminders that brought pain 
• — blank despair at the thought of separa- 
tion from him. Being a martyr wasn’t 
fun at all she decided — one didn’t feel, 
somehow, any communion with high souls. 
Tumbleweed did not acknowledge this 
even to herself, but vaguely she wondered 
why. 


CHAPTER X 


ONLY AFTEB DEATH 

Tumbleweed sat in a disconsolate little 
heap at her desk. One foot was crossed 
under her ; her hair, shining from its re- 
cent shampoo and brushing, fell carelessly 
over her silk kimono. The clock in front of 
her seemed to point accusing fingers at the 
costume and ballet slippers that must be 
donned before the hour struck. Of all this 
Tumbleweed was keenly conscious, but 
she sat miserably on with that very young 
and jealous guarding of sorrow which re- 
fuses to recognize interest in anything else 
lest its genuineness be called into question. 

Pinally she roused herself with a sigh 
and began to copy the scribbled pages 
stretched out before her. It was very 
strange that on the morning of her com- 
mencement Tumbleweed should be writ- 
159 


160 


TUMBLEWEED 


ing a letter to be delivered only after her 
death. She wrote steadily at the letter. 

“Dear ‘Man’ — You will be surprised at 
the beginning of this letter as you will be 
surprised at the things I have to tell you 
in it. I smile a little as I think of the look 
on your face. Yet it is to be a very, very 
serious letter for you will not read it till 
all but the spirit part of me is gone. 

“In the dear days when I told you every- 
thing and sang for you I was only a little 
dreaming girl, full of a thousand fancies 
but never suspecting the one true fact. 
Perhaps you knew even then that I loved 
you. I did not know till the evening of 
the day I played I was a candle for your 
wedding and you looked at me as if you 
were going to kiss me. Then I knew that 
I wanted you to. 

“Oh, Man, forgive me for loving you! 
God knows I have suffered for it. Emer- 
son says : ‘It is thought a disgrace to love 
unrequited.’ I do not know; in the one, 


ONLY AFTER DEATH 161 


great, burning wonder of my life the dis- 
grace has all faded away. I know I ought 
to feel that it is very, very wicked, but 
somehow it only seems inevitable. 

“ You will never, never understand how 
I have loved you. I have envied the beauty 
of a flower that rested your eyes, the cool- 
ness of water that refreshed you, the 
melody of music that delighted you. And 
there could be no beauty or refreshment or 
delight in me for you. I have been less 
than nothing to you. But perhaps, now, 
the mysterious alchemy of love may trans- 
mute all the romance and power and won- 
der of a woman’s heart into some cup of 
strength for you to drain. 

“Like Kipling’s Ameera I have cried: 
4 There is no god but thee, Beloved,’ and it 
has been bitter-bliss to say it, knowing all 
the while that there was a great and stern 
and inscrutable power that had chosen to 
give you happiness without me and to deny 
me even the right to be near you. 

“Perhaps it was in training for this 


162 


TUMBLEWEED 


spirit love of mine that I have been taught 
from the beginning to live so much in the 
spirit and so little in the flesh. Do you re- 
member the first night when you fright- 
ened me so by telling me to be careful 
when the flesh intruded ? It frightens me 
yet. But I don’t want you to think about 
what I have suffered, because for the 
most part it has been a steady, wonderful, 
spiritual adventure. And I love adven- 
ture and living a story 1 

“ Forgive me that once or twice in the 
loneliest times I have imagined your arms 
about me, your kiss on my lips. The agony 
after such moments pays for their wonder 
and — I am only a woman. But really that 
has been only once or twice. ‘That which 
you know not in yourself’ I have loved and 
do love beyond the end. 

“Your friend, 

“Tumbleweed.” 

The blue eyes were very dark and mys- 
terious as Tumbleweed sealed the 


ONLY AFTER DEATH 163 


envelope, addressed it and added the 
words, “To be delivered only after my 
death.’ ’ 

“It isn’t the littlest bit like any other 
letter I ever wrote,” she mused; “it 
doesn’t sound like me — it sounds like, well, 
a voice from beyond the limits of the 
world.” She slipped the sealed letter into 
a large blank envelope and, hiding it under 
a pile of papers on her desk, rose. 

The clock stopped ticking accusations 
at her as she hurriedly tightened the cord 
of her ballet slippers and slipped into the 
green velvet costume that transformed her 
into Tom, the Piper’s son. 

“Chubby,” Wee called, as she fastened 
her doublet ; “I’m ready for you now to do 
my hair.” 

Chubby, who had been eagerly awaiting 
the call, danced in, brush in hand. With 
caressing fingers she twisted Tumble- 
weed’s shining hair up and under until it 
stood out, bobbed, like a little boy’s. Then 
she twined the ivy crown around it to hold 


164 


TUMBLEWEED 


it in place. But the result did not satisfy 
her. L 6 You’re too pale, Wee; let me get 
some rouge.’ ’ 

“ No ” Tumbleweed stopped her with 
a sudden emphatic negative. It rather 
pleased her that she was pale. “I’m going 
to dance outdoors,” she said. “That’ll 
give me enough color and I won’t be 
painted.” 

She took one more glance at the slim, 
graceful, boyish figure, with its oddly wist- 
ful face, then she sent Chubby for her 
pipes and the long brown cloak she was 
to wear till her appearance on the plat- 
form. When she was alone she leaned 
toward the slender reflection in the 
mirror. 

“Tumbleweed,” she said almost fierce- 
ly, “maybe you are the first broken- 
hearted woman who ever had to play she 
was a gay little boy. But you’ve got to 
be game enough to do it, do you hear?” 

Then, wrapped about in the long brown 
cloak, with Chubby following as page to 


ONLY AFTER DEATH 165 


wait on her, she went down to the campus. 
The festival spirit filled it with the very 
breath of spring. Tumbleweed passed 
from one group of friends to another. 
Every one wanted to see what the brown 
cloak hid, but with that delicious sense of 
protected beauty, she whisked away before 
the mystery could be revealed. It was so 
late that she barely had time to place her 
mother and Billy with Aunt Ellen and 
Uncle Joe, and to notice that Mr. Carman 
was with them before she was called be- 
hind the scenes of the outdoor stage. 
Hosts of hurrying girls in every sort of 
costume were dropping wraps and whis- 
pering about her. It was very good to be 
rubbing elbows with them all in the inti- 
mate fun, in the sharing of suspense so 
typical of school life, on this last day they 
were to be together. Tumbleweed’s 
cheeks flushed and her eyes grew tender as 
she handed Chubby her cloak. 

The program of nursery pantomime be- 
gan. One could scarcely have recognized 


166 


TUMBLEWEED 


as schoolgirls these daintily - costumed 
Mother Goose folk of another world. As 
Julie, a charmingly pastoral Bo-Peep, 
came up to her, Tumbleweed felt a little 
pang of envy. Julie always blossomed 
into such beauty for functions — just when 
one would wish to be beautiful ! With sud- 
den shame at her envy Tumbleweed 
reached out to squeeze her hand. 

“You’re — you’re Dresdeny lovely, Ju,” 
she whispered. 

It seemed hours before Tumbleweed’s 
turn came, but at last the music began, a 
weird little sylvan dance of the pipes. The 
exhilaration of acting seized her — the joy- 
ous freedom of being “at leisure from 
one’s self” that a coat of another color 
brings. 

Like some slender herald of Pan, both 
arms raised to hold the pipes to her lips, 
Tumbleweed danced on to the stage, now 
peeping behind a tree, now retreating with 
a swift little rush as if frightened by alien 
eyes, now pausing as if intently listening 


ONLY AFTER DEATH 167 


for some voice from the heart of the green- 
wood. The heels of her slippers did not 
touch the ground; her eyes sought the 
branches of the trees, as if looking for 
hidden birds’ nests were the most awesome 
and thrilling business of her fairy life: 
There are times when dancing alone un- 
consciously reveals the longing of the 
heart. More than one watcher was puzzled 
by the intense wistfulness, the hint of 
“far-off, sad, forgotten things” that crept 
over the audience as Tumbleweed danced. 
The speaker’s voice, clear and soft, came 
from behind the curtain — 

“Tom, he was the piper’s son, 

He learned to play when he was young. 
And all the tune that he could play, 

Was ‘Over the hills and far away.’ ” 

As the second verse began Tumbleweed 
leaned against the trunk of a tree and 
gaily dressed children came trooping 
across the stage, drawn by her music. 


168 


TUMBLEWEED 


They formed a semicircle about her, some 
standing, some sitting, one little chap 
lying flat on the ground, chin in his hands, 
feet crossed in the air behind him. 

“Now Tom with his pipes made such a 
noise,” — the verse continued, 
“That he pleased both the girls and boys, 
And they stopped to hear him play, 

‘Over the hills and far away, 

Over the hills and a great way off 
The wind shall blow my top-knot off.’ ” 

As the curtain was drawn, Tumble- 
weed hardly noticed the clapping that 
followed the moment of tense silence out 
beyond. “Over the hills and a great way 
off” — how she wished she were there! 

She slipped into the cloak Chubby held 
for her and passed around the edge of the 
audience, conscious and flushing under the 
admiring eyes that followed her. She 
made her way to the little family group 
which J ulie had already j oined. They had 


ONLY AFTER DEATH 169 


saved a seat for her and she sank into it 
gratefully. 

4 ‘Tired, Wee?” Billy questioned in a 
.whisper. 

“They’ve looked me tired,” she smiled 
back. Then with a sudden little return of 
childish petulance: “That man’s been 
watching me for five minutes. Stare him 
down, Billy.” 

Both Billy and Mr. Carman turned with 
that bristling, protective aggressiveness 
one’s men-folk always have. Then the 
next pantomime took all other eyes but 
Mrs. Warner’s from Tumbleweed’s face. 
Feeling her mother’s troubled and ques- 
tioning look, Tumbleweed gathered her 
courage. Then, as merry as of old, she 
bent her head. 

“Fix your little boy’s blown top-knot, 
mother,” she said. 

Mrs. Warner’s worry passed as she 
fastened the tumbled hair with a few more 
pins. And Tumbleweed, having girded 
herself with courage, felt its sustaining 


170 


TUMBLEWEED 


power. Even the fact that Julie and Mr. 
Carman were together in the next row was 
but an additional incentive to bravery. 

After the program was over there were 
mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers 
to meet, with an occasional fiance to de- 
light or appal the girls. In a moment’s 
lull Billy and Mr. Carman seized Tumble- 
weed and bore her away to the top of Bald 
Head, the hill just beyond the campus, to 
take her picture. 

“We’re coming back for you in about 
two minutes, Julie,” Billy called. 

His snap-shots were soon taken, and, 
true to his promise, he was off to the cam- 
pus again. But Mr. Carman, with an eye 
for every detail, posed Tumbleweed 
again and again — on the very top of the 
hill, outlined against the soft summer 
clouds, her head thrown back and the pipes 
raised to her lips, “a-tiptoe of the world,” 
Tumbleweed said. Then he tried her 
again, lower down, near the trees. It 
would have been sweet torture, tired as she 



On the very top of the hill outlined against the soft summer clouds 






































ONLY AFTER DEATH 171 


was, to dance and turn and pose, had she 
been able to satisfy him. But the harder 
she tried to recapture the abandon, the 
gay pagan charm he sought, the more im- 
possible it became. 

At least she was having him to herself, 
out there under the sky. The laughter 
from the campus seemed to accentuate 
their aloneness. It was almost time for 
the farewell luncheon and Julie’s pictures 
had not been taken, but Tumbleweed 
dropped to the ground. 

“I’m so tired I feel as if the camera 
were an ogre about to eat me up,” she 
sighed — “can’t we rest a little?” 

.Mr. Carman sat down beside her. “I’m 
sorry I tired you out, Wee,” he said. 
“Here, it’s too damp for you on the 
ground — let me spread your cloak for you 
to sit on.” 

Tumbleweed luxuriated in being taken 
care of, but she demurred, from force of 
habit and for the joy of being overruled. 
She was longing, as always when with Mr, 


172 


TUMBLEWEED 


Carman, to have him say the things he 
ought not to say, or at least to hint at them. 
Oddly exhilarated — so intoxicating is dan- 
ger — she plied him with questions about 
the pantomime, eager to hear him praise 
her. But Mr. Carman was perverse. He 
answered her shortly, then asked her to 
pose again. 

Half angered and wholly miserable she 
rose. Mr. Carman pulled out a plate irri- 
tably. “I want your hair to blow,” he 
said; “but of course there’s no wind — or 
at least you ar en ’t in it. W ell, that ’ll have 
to do.” He snapped the bulb with such a 
quick nervous gesture, that the tears 
sprang to Tumbleweed’s eyes. 

“I — I’m sorry,” she said falteringly. 
Then she turned away and raised her arm 
with that instinctive shielding which seeks 
to ward off notice of trembling lips and 
brimming eyes. 

‘ ‘ Why, Wee, ” Mr. Carman spoke in con- 
cern, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feel- 
ings.” He stood puzzled watching the 


ONLY AFTER DEATH 173 


boyish figure struggling valiantly with its 
womanish desire for tears. Suddenly 
Tumbleweed remembered that Julie was 
waiting to pose for Mr. Carman. The 
temptation was too great. She dropped to 
the ground again, clasping her knees un- 
der her chin, and hid her face. She 
wanted to be comforted — and Julie would 
have him after this to the end of the world. 
Mr. Carman stood awkwardly watching 
her, distressed at the unusual occurrence. 

“Tumbleweed, you mustn’t cry,” he 
said. “It, it doesn’t suit your part, some- 
how, you’re too much of a sprite — ” He 
fumbled for words. 

His only reward was a stifled: “I’m 
tired of my part; I’m just like every one 
else.” 

As he would have questioned a suffer- 
ing child, for such, indeed, she seemed to 
him, Mr. Carman questioned her. 

“Can’t you tell me what’s the matter, 
little girl?” he asked. 

“It’s — it’s what you said,” Tumble- 


174 


TUMBLEWEED 


weed answered, conscious that she could 
tell but half the truth — “I’m not in the 
Wind, somehow, and I can’t get back in it. 
S^ou said: c There isn’t any Wind.’ ” 

Once more, as on the first day he had 
seen her years before, Mr. Carman felt 
the momentary awareness of a great and 
pervasive personality. Her voice had not 
lost its trick of capitalizing words. 

He spoke quickly. It was proof of their 
deep understanding that she did not need 
to explain her words. “I didn’t mean 
that, Tumbleweed,” he said, * ‘ Julie and I 
have found so much of what you call the 
wind lately. And you will, too, when 
you’re rested. Why, you taught us to rec- 
ognize it !” He put his hand on her shoul- 
der, but she shook it off and sprang to her 
feet, with blazing eyes, as of old. 

“You and Julie are Nots,” she said, 
‘ 4 everybody is a Hot ! I ’m a Not myself ! ’ ’ 
Then she ran down the hill and back to the 
Hall, leaving Mr. Carman more puzzled 
than ever. 


ONLY AFTER DEATH 175 


The hours of the farewell luncheon with 
its toasts and songs dragged for Tumble- 
weed. She had hoped for quiet in the aft- 
ernoon when the girls were supposed to 
rest in preparation for the evening’s ex- 
ercises. But one friend after another 
crept in for a little last chat, so it was not 
until after the evening’s reception that 
she was alone. Then she faced the words 
that had been beating through her con- 
sciousness ever since noon, with the dull 
insistance of relentless pursuit. 4 ‘I’m a 
Not myself,” she had said. Like some 
sudden blighting curse the realization of 
the truth of her words fell upon her. She 
saw it all clearly now. She was no better 
than the Nots she had scorned all her life 
» — in fact she was one of them. It was 
Nottish to have kept Mr. Carman from 
Julie at noon — but hadn’t she been trying 
to keep him from her always % She winced 
a little at the sudden vision she had of 
what she had been doing these last 
months. Shorn of its halo of romance, the 


176 


TUMBLEWEED 


bare fact stood out before her and she 
shrank shuddering from its ugliness. Yes, 
undoubtedly, she, too, was a Not! 

A dull despair and hopelessness settled 
on Tumbleweed’s heart. Her unseeing 
eyes sought the tree-tops outside the win- 
dow that had framed all her schoolgirl 
dreams. The worshiper of Pan found no 
comfort. She had utterly failed, and, bit- 
terest of all and most usual, had she but 
known it, in the very realm where she had 
thought herself invincible. It was of no 
use to say over and over: “ Everybody’s 
a Not — there is no wind!” Even though 
the wind is invisible one can see the 
branches sway — and that is enough. Tum- 
bleweed thought of the truest moments of 
her life, as one thinks of the dead. They 
had all been wind moments. Yes, of a 
certainty the wind still blew — but she had 
lost the ability to be like a tumbleweed be- 
fore it. Did commencement mean finding 
out things like this ? 


CHAPTER XI 


PURPLE BLOSSOMS 

Farewells over and school left behind, 
Tumbleweed leaned back in her chair on 
the observation car with a great sense of 
relief. She had not seen Mr. Carman 
again, for she had slept over the hour of 
his departure. It rather pleased her that 
her last interview with him should have 
been a dramatic one. She had scarcely 
noticed the other occupants of the car but, 
as she bent for one more whiff of Billy’s 
farewell flowers, whitely lovely against her 
dark suit, she heard a child’s questioning 
voice. 

“Why do trees ’nd houses ’nd roads ’nd 
things run so fast past the train, mother ?” 

Tumbleweed swung eagerly around in 
her chair to face the little girl who stood, 
her nose flattened against the big window. 

177 


178 


TUMBLEWEED 


Her mother was studying the pages of a 
fashion magazine and paid no attention to 
the question. 

Tumbleweed smiled a little — one had 
to be careful not to be too presumptuous. 

“I know why,” she said quietly — “if 
.you come over here I’ll tell you, in your 
ear.” Her voice sank a little mysteri- 
ously. “ It ’s a secret, you see. ’ ’ 

Slowly the little girl’s eyes traveled 
from Tumbleweed’s face to her shoes and 
back again with that awful and momen- 
tous appraisement of childhood. Then she 
crossed the car. Tumbleweed longed to 
pick her up, but she resisted the tempta- 
tion and bent till her lips were on a level 
with the child ’s ear. “It's because they’re 
afraid of the engine,” she whispered. 

Once more the big eyes sought hers, a 
growing satisfaction in their depths. 

“Do you know any more things like 
that?” she asked. 

Tumbleweed nodded. “Heaps of ’em,” 
she answered. 


PURPLE BLOSSOMS 


179 


“Any more why stories V 9 

“Yes,” Tumbleweed bent once more. 
“I’ve got a whole book full inside my 
head,” she confided. 

“Did you eat it?” 

The child, all fear gone, climbed into 
Tumbleweed’s lap. With that half-rev- 
erent, half-famished happiness that the 
feeling of a child in one’s arms never fails 
to bring, Tumbleweed shifted the little 
head that was crushing the white blos- 
soms against her coat. For the next half- 
hour while the falling twilight stole the 
view from the staring windows, the grown- 
up child retraced her joyous wanderings 
in the world of fancy for the little girl who 
stood, breathless, on the threshold of once 
upon a time. At dinner the child refused 
to eat at any table save the one where 
Tumbleweed and her mother sat. Just 
as she was being tucked away in her berth, 
she crossed the car again with another 
question. 

“White Flower Lady,” she said, “why 


180 


TUMBLEWEED 


are some of the mountains white and some 
brown ?” 

With the confidence in first-impulse an- 
swers that knowledge of children brings, 
Tumbleweed said: “The white moun- 
tains are the good ones, dear. The lovely 
soft snow is their crown. ” 

The child looked relieved. “Oh,” she 
said, “then the brown mountains are 
bad?” 

Tumbleweed, puzzled, hesitated. 

“Well,” she said, “some of the brown 
mountains are bad — but,” with the sudden, 
joyous little burst of a new idea, “some of 
them aren’t grown-up yet, so no one knows 
whether they are going to be good or bad.” 

A burst of laughter from a stout travel- 
ing man across the aisle startled Tumble- 
weed. “You’d better write novels, little 
lady,” he said. 

Embarrassed by her sudden promi- 
nence, Tumbleweed turned to her mother. 
Write novels — what did she care about 
writing novels? She wanted to live them. 


PURPLE BLOSSOMS 


181 


And she was . With a sudden sense of 
having played traitor to her sorrow, she 
began to think once more of Mr. Carman 
and her wrecked life and the fact that she 
was a Not. While the child had been with 
her she had almost forgotten. How could 
she ? Tumbleweed did not yet know that 
a part of the unconscious ministry of chil- 
dren is forgetfulness. Through the talk 
of the men across the car Tumbleweed 
heard the child ask if God could hear her 
prayers above the noise of the train. She 
smiled, a bit ruefully, into her mother’s 
amused eyes. 

“ Mercy, I hope she doesn’t ask me any- 
thing theological,” Tumbleweed sighed. 
Then she leaned forward. “ Mother, why 
can’t I think straight?” 

Mrs. Warner was used to sudden ques- 
tions, but this one puzzled her. 

“I don’t know what you mean, Wee,” 
she said. 

“Well,” Tumbleweed hesitated, slip- 
ping the heel of her pump on and off. It 


182 


TUMBLEWEED 


is a habit most detrimental to stockings 
but most conducive to thought. “The 
girls at school,” she continued, “were al- 
ways talking about being honest and go- 
ing down through the depths of doubt and 
thinking straight about philosophy and 
God and things — and honestly I don’t 
quite understand. ’Cause my thoughts are 
so curly , mother. Do you see what I 
mean?” 

Mrs. Warner smiled. “I think I do,” 
she answered. “But your thoughts aren’t 
half so curly as they used to be. When 
you were very little I couldn’t follow 
them around half the kinks. Like every- 
thing else it’s part of growing up, Wee. 
Most children have curls.” 

Tumbleweed pondered. “Maybe that’s 
why children like to listen to my thoughts, 
and people like the traveling man are sur- 
prised,” she mused. “But, mother, is it 
like hair? Won’t naturally curly 
thoughts ever straighten out?” 

“That all depends on the way they’re 


PURPLE BLOSSOMS 


183 


treated. Most people would rather they 
didn’t straighten out altogether,” Mrs. 
Warner answered. “But they have to be 
well brushed and taken care of so that 
they’ll be just wavey and not all snarled.” 

Tumbleweed nodded understandingly. 
“I know,” she said, “that’s the danger of 
curly thoughts. They’re apt to get all 
snarled — like Browning’s,” she added la- 
conically. 

“Well, we’ll get snarled ourselves, if we 
don’t go to bed!” 

Mrs. Warner was worried by the white- 
ness of Tumbleweed’s face, and by the 
hint of tragedy in all she did. She did not 
like this sudden intense introspection. She 
was glad Billy’s jolly house-party in the 
wilds of northern Minnesota was coming. 
Had she known that Tumbleweed was 
dreading the enforced gaiety she would 
have been more puzzled than ever. 

A few days at home, full of the bustle 
of dressmakers and the repacking of 
clothes. Tumbleweed’s heart called, 


184 


TUMBLEWEED 


after all these months, for her own high 
hill, the altar where every; childish sor- 
row had been wiped away, where every 
birthday dream had first tried its wings. 
But she did not go to it. She told herself 
bitterly that now she was a Not — and hill- 
tops did not belong to such as she. She 
tried to put out of her mind Jefferies’ 
words : 6 6 There is always a wind on a hill- 
top. ’ ’ She was not ready for that. 

As she sped through mile after mile of 
the desolate northern country, once so 
beautiful, now so devastated by fire, Tum- 
bleweed felt once more a curious sym- 
pathy between the earth and herself. Back 
there the world had been too happy a 
place, with its luxuriant green and gold, 
but here — The rank shrubbery of second 
growth had the dismalness of a man’s neg- 
lected beard. Here and there a blackened 
tree-trunk lifted its weird pointing finger 
against the sky. “It’s just like my life,” 
Tumbleweed thought to herself, “every- 
thing beautiful and worth while burnt out. 


PURPLE BLOSSOMS 


185 


At least it’s a comfort not to have nature 
flaunting brilliant colors in my face like a 
scarlet gown.at a funeral to show how in- 
different she is.” 

Por a day or two the house-party 
humped, as Billy expressed it. They 
played all the traditional jokes that lose 
none of their humor from year to year. 
They talked and romped till the small 
hours of the night and slept till the large 
hours of the day. But through the joy 
of those first, wildly-free summer days of 
canoeing and bathing and tramps, stole the 
conviction, for most of the party, that 
something was the matter. Billy, alone, 
guessed where the trouble lay and, used 
as he was, from old experience, to Tumble- 
weed ’s having a secret, still her spells of 
wild hilarity followed by long periods of 
brooding over the fire, worried him. The 
strange stillness of her, the suspension 
that reigned dully in her heart, had wrung 
from her much of the whimsicality he 
loved. Least of all could he understand 


186 


TUMBLEWEED 


the way she shrank from the outdoor 
things which had always before been her 
delight. He did not know that it is far 
easier to be a tragic heroine to one’s self 
within four walls than in the star-roofed, 
tree-curtained spaces of the out-of-doors. 

Tumbleweed had no idea that she was 
spoiling the house-party. She was horn 
estly trying to enter into it as of old. Time 
and again when some careless allusion to 
Julie or Mr. Carman cut her to the heart, 
she bravely passed over the temptation to 
escape and forced herself to act as if noth- 
ing had happened. But she insisted on 
suffering in private, not realizing that the 
pain that is kept only out of one’s words 
is ill-concealed. 

One afternoon Billy came in exultant. 

c ‘I’ve managed to round up enough 
horses for us to ride over to the farm early 
to-morrow,” he called. The farm, Tumble- 
weed knew, was the home of an old couple 
who had a piano, the one oasis in this mu- 
sical desert. She had not sung for weeks ; 


PURPLE BLOSSOMS 


187 


her music was so intimately connected 
with Mr. Carman that the striking of a 
chord quivered through her heart like a 
death song. But it was obviously impos- 
sible to escape this excursion that Billy 
was planning with so much glee. Perhaps 
she could listen while the others sang. She 
certainly could do no more ! 

White, but keyed for courage, Wee 
mounted her horse next morning, and rode 
off beside Billy. It was a strange half- 
ghostly procession that left the camp, the 
hulking shoulders of the farm horses push- 
ing through the white-gold mist of the 
early morning. They were silent save for 
a joking word now and then about their 
fiery steeds. The miracle of morning, 
bird-heralded through the enshrouding 
mist, began to stretch toward them shin- 
ing green-leaved welcome. 

Billy rode very slowly until the others 
had left them behind. Then he turned to 
Tumbleweed. 

“I found something the other day I 


188 


TUMBLEWEED 


want to show you, Wee. But well have 
to ride fast if we’re going to see it. Are 
you game — and will you mind missing 
some of the music?” 

Tumbleweed smiled. “I’d like a fast 
ride better than anything else in all the 
world, Billy,” she answered. 

With no more ceremony than a “Come 
on, then,” he urged his horse to a gallop 
and she followed. On and on they 
pounded through the cool stillness of the 
morning, on through the loneliness of a 
half-forgotten trail, marked by charred 
stumps on either side and winding up a 
hill with young fir trees visible through 
the lifting mist. Tumbleweed was curi- 
ous as to the nature of Billy’s surprise, 
but it was no time for questioning. She 
half expected it to be baby rabbits ; Billy 
knew how she loved anything soft and 
little. 

As they slowed for a turn, Tumbleweed 
laughingly begged for mercy. 

“My poor old horse is steaming, Billy,” 


PURPLE BLOSSOMS 


189 


she called, “and as for me, my eyelashes 
have decided to grow in at both ends.” 

Billy did not answer, but as they 
rounded the curve he gave one eager 
glance at the forest of slender birches, 
then turned with unconcealed pride to 
watch Tumbleweed. 

“Oh, Billy!” was all she said, but the 
words were reward enough. Tumble- 
weed had never seen anything so tran- 
scendency lovely as this mist garden with 
its slender white pillars. That other 
world grace and mystic sadness which only 
birches can attain filled the place where 
the trees stood, like warriors the lovelier 
for their scars, gleaming, silver brown, 
through the lifting mist. Starring the 
rank growth at their feet, like burning 
flames pushing a softened radiance 
through the thin blanket of the mist, 
sprang queer rose-purple blossoms. Tum- 
bleweed’s heart ached with the loveli- 
ness of it. Surely this must be a spot the 
fire spirits had spared. 


190 


TUMBLEWEED 


The northern wilds, robbed by forest 
fires of real treasure, have a certain brazen 
air of reclaiming themselves, a cheap habit 
of setting up hastily elaborate green 
screens in an effort at hiding burned 
places as ineffectual and distressing as a 
napkin placed over a soiled spot on a table- 
cloth. To have found a spot of real classic 
beauty amid the crude youth of such sur- 
roundings was no mean achievement. 
Billy was very proud of himself and he 
waited, impatient, for Tumbleweed’s 
comment. She watched in silence, drink- 
ing in the wonder of it till the mist had 
lifted and the rose-purple flowers were dis- 
tinct against the green. Then, reluctantly 
obedient, she turned her horse’s head. 

“You’re the dearest boy that ever lived, 
Billy, to bring me here, ’ ’ she said. * 4 1 feel 
as if I’d been bathed clean, with something 
magical and wonderful, the water of youth 
perhaps. Or is it the roses and milk of 
the old fairy tales ? I’ve always had a sus- 


PURPLE BLOSSOMS 


191 


picion they’d make you dreadful sticky, 
don’t you think so?” 

Billy laughed. “I never thought about 
it at all, Wee,” he said. “But how did 
you like my new flower? See, I picked 
some for you while you were dreaming.” 

With a little exclamation of delight, 
Tumbleweed took the sprays he held out 
to her. She held them for a moment, lov- 
ingly, before she tucked them into her belt. 

“Real flower,” she said, “I’m gladdest 
glad to see you! I haven’t seen anything 
but a coarse yellow daisy for weeks.” 

At Billy’s amused look Tumbleweed 
hastened to add; “Of course, I like yel- 
low daisies in a way — but they always re- 
mind me of a girl at school. She w T as one 
of the nouveau riche, always attempting to 
capture culture at parties and things. As 
if it grew there! She was effective, like 
daisies, en masse, but — well, she wouldn’t 
belong in the mist garden back there. By 
the way, Billy, what is this flower? I’m 


192 


TUMBLEWEED 


sure I’ve never seen it before.” It was 
characteristic of Tumbleweed that the 
practical question should be the last one 
she asked. 

“I asked old Enoch about it the other 
day after I found the place,” Billy an- 
swered. “And he said it was called fire- 
weed and that if the soil was good it al- 
most always sprang up after the forest 
fires.” 

The analogy between this north coun- 
try, burned, shorn of its beauty, and her 
own life that still had “the smell of fire 
on its garments,” the analogy that had 
struck her so poignantly on the train came 
back to Tumbleweed and remained. 

“Did he say anything else?” she asked 
eagerly. ‘ ‘ How can the flowers come after 
the fire?” 

“Old Enoch said it was sort of mysteri- 
ous about their coming. Some people 
think the fire kills every other seed so this 
one gets a chance to grow. But old Enoch 
said he thought the wind brought the seed 


PURPLE BLOSSOMS 


193 


and it could only grow in soil that had been 
changed by fire.” 

“Oh!” Tumbleweed’s cheeks flushed 
and her eyes looked as if she were seeing 
visions. But no words followed the sud- 
den hushed exclamation. Thoughts were 
whirling through her brain too fast for 
expression. Fireweed — was it possible 
that anything so lovely could grow in the 
desert place of her life? Could the fire 
that had been so deadly bitter in its burn- 
ing have prepared the soil for the spring- 
ing of fireweed? Then she remembered 
old Enoch’s words that only out of good 
soil sprang fireweed. Unconsciously her 
head assumed its old proud poise. She 
remembered with a little frightened catch 
of her breath that the wind brought the 
fireweed seeds. It was of no use to try to 
escape the wind — neither could one pre- 
dict its paths. But one could try to let the 
fire prepare rather than destroy — try to 
hold the soil receptive for the coming seed. 

.Once or twice on the long road to the 


194 


TUMBLEWEED 


farm Billy started to talk, but Tumble- 
weed answered him so absently that be 
gave up the attempt. His merry continu- 
ous whistle bothered her no more than her 
abstraction troubled him. While their 
horses walked side by side their minds 
were abroad on different roads. 

When they reached the old farm belong- 
ing to Mr. Enoch, Tumbleweed had am- 
ple time to enjoy its naive contradictions. 
The concert was in full sway. It was de- 
lightfully cool in the large parlor with its 
white curtained windows reaching to the 
floor, its white walls dingy in their single 
coat of plaster, the ladder to the open loft 
above so oddly at variance with the piano 
in the corner. Tumbleweed tried to rec- 
ollect all Billy had told her about this old 
couple. They were music lovers she knew 
and they had scraped and saved, they had 
economized on stairs and had climbed a 
ladder for twenty years — till at last their 
dream, shining brown and full of sweet 
tones, stood there in the corner, the mecca 


PURPLE BLOSSOMS 195 


of their hearts. How like an old patriarch 
Mr. Enoch looked as the green-gold light 
from without rested on his listening face, 
that unconsciously revealed so much of the 
strength of renunciation! His wife sat 
with her hands crossed in her lap in that 
mute gesture of unaccustomed leisure 
which tells so much more of ceaseless toil 
than wrinkles or stooped shoulders. They 
listened with intense enjoyment till the 
young people had played and sung every- 
thing they knew. 

Then, after some urging, Mrs. Enoch 
took her seat at the piano. In the days of 
her courtship she had played the organ 
at church. Her tinkling, lady-like chords 
were almost drowned under the thunder 
of Mr. Enoch’s voice rolling out from be- 
hind his long beard. Hymn after hymn 
filled the white parlor; the hollyhocks 
tapped approvingly on the window. Such 
militant music suited their unbending 
dignity ! 

Tumbleweed was looking hard at the 


196 


TUMBLEWEED 


fireweed in her belt as they finished. 
Then, of a sudden, she rose of her own ac- 
cord and went to the piano. Every song 
she sang was entwined with memories ; it 
took all her will power to keep her voice 
steady. She sang only a little — “just 
enough for one fireweed plant,” she said 
to herself. The gratitude on Mr. Enoch’s 
face filled her with a quick flood of warm 
affection. 

A moment later she was startled by the 
sudden inrush of white chickens through 
the open door. Mr. Enoch had given the 
peculiar cluck that summoned them and 
they came flapping and running by the 
dozens — much to Mrs. Enoch’s disgust. 
The party broke up in a merry shooing 
out of the unwelcome intruders. 

“That’s Mr. Enoch’s way of letting us 
know it’s time to go home,” Billy ex- 
plained to Tumbleweed as he helped her 
mount. 

“It certainly is most original,” she an- 


PURPLE BLOSSOMS 


197 


swered laughingly. “What a wonderful 
old-fashioned garden,” she sighed, bliss- 
fully feasting her eyes on the color. “And 
what dear old people! Billy, let’s come 
again some time, can’t we?” 

“Have you had a good time — did you 
really like it, Wee ?” the young host ques- 
tioned, delighted to have found something 
that had pleased his guest. 

“I loved it, Billy,” she answered 
quickly — “every bit, from the beginning 
to the end — more than I’ve loved anything 
for weeks. Thanh you!” 

There was silence for a moment, then 
Billy said abruptly, “Let’s ride fast.” 

Above the beat of the blood that was 
racing so pleasantly through her veins, 
Tumbleweed was quoting Alice In Won- 
derland* to herself. “ ‘Curiouser and 
curiouser,’ ” she thought. “It’s all very 
confusing! ‘ Things flow around here so.’ 
I keep changing from a Wind Person to a 
Not and back again, just as Alice grew 


198 


TUMBLEWEED 


larger and smaller. I was so sure I was 
a Wind Person until this spring — and 
I’ve been so sure since that I was a Not. 
But — singing wasn ’t N ottish ! Oh, the sky 
and the woods and the road!” 


CHAPTER XII 


TO THE END OF THE WORLD 

Chubby was making frantic signals to 
attract Billy’s attention — and was suc- 
ceeding in attracting the attention of al- 
most every one but Billy. He sat en- 
grossed watching the firelight shine on 
Tumbleweed’s hair. They had all been 
dreaming for the last half-hour. The 
jokes and stories and songs of the earlier 
evening had died down as the crackle of 
the fire burned itself into quietness. 

Chubby was remembering what Wee 
had said once at school about Kay’s being 
like a fire, having like it the power of 
drawing people to her and resting them, 
making them comfortable and happy. 
With sudden pain she remembered the 
Wee of old, the Wee who abandoned her- 
199 


200 


TUMBLEWEED 


self with such utter grace to everything in 
turn. How different this silent heart- 
locked creature was. Her worry over it 
all took definite shape. She must talk to 
Billy — why wouldn’t he look? 

Some one, sentimentalized by the fire 
and the thought of approaching separa- 
tion, suggested a game of truth. There 
is an age limit to the playing of truth ; an 
attempt to play it when one is over 
eighteen is most unwise. Katherine and 
Billy and Tumbleweed rose simultane- 
ously and said it was time to go to bed. 
Then at last Chubby succeeded by the 
force of a hand on Billy’s arm to keep him 
to herself for a moment. 

“ Billy, ” she said, when they were alone, 
her face wrinkled into a funny little 
pucker of worry, “ whatever is the matter 
with Wee?” 

“ Nothing at all, Chubby. She’s just 
tired after school, that’s all.” Billy had 
the man’s instinct of making light of anx- 
iety. But in his heart of hearts he knew 


TO THE END OF THE WORLD 201 


that Chubby was not the sort to worry un- 
necessarily, and he was troubled. 

Chubby was in no mood for politeness. 

“ Tired — rubbish !” she said. “I’ve 
been with Wee ’most every year after 
school, even after the play when she’d 
been up till morning every night for weeks 
and fainted and everything and she was 
never like this. Why, Billy, she does the 
queerest things. Sometimes,” — Chubby 
hesitated almost afraid to put her fear 
into words, “sometimes,” she repeated in 
a whisper, “I’m almost afraid she’s going 
Crazy.” 

“What do you mean, Chubby?” Billy’s 
words were sharp with sudden terror. 

“Well, Heaven knows, I hope I’m 
wrong,” she answered, sighing a little with 
the relief of having communicated her 
fear. “But for one thing she keeps mut- 
tering to herself so much of the time even 
when she’s dressing and undressing — the 
silliest stuff, usually about a doodledoo — » 
whatever that is.” 


202 


TUMBLEWEED 


Chubby paused, hoping that Billy could 
explain, but his brows were still drawn to- 
gether. ‘ 1 Sounds like a nursery bird, ’ ’ he 
commented, troubled. “What else, 
Chubby?” 

“I asked her once what she was doing,” 
Chubby continued, “and I don’t think she 
liked it at all. She had a furtive sort of 
look when she saw I’d been noticing, and 
then she laughed that sudden way she has 
and said she w r as brushing out her curly 
thoughts. Honestly, Billy, that’s what she 
said. Now, that’s perfectly insane. Oh, 
Billy, I don’t know what to do 1” 

For the time being, Billy’s task was to 
comfort Chubby — no easy task with his 
own heart so heavy. She left him at last, 
eased, a little, of the burden she had 
shifted to his shoulders. Then Billy went 
to pace the star-lit silence without. Up 
and down, up and down ! How the burden 
of the world would lift could we but walk 
it out like horses in a treadmill ! 

Above, Tumbleweed was staring into 


TO THE END OF THE WORLD 203 


the same star-lit silence, as unconscious of 
the stars as Billy below. Her mind was 
busy with the great mystery of death, 
brought poignantly near by the drowning 
of an unknown man in the lake a half a 
mile away. If she had been drowned in- 
stead, Tumbleweed thought, the letter 
that lay inside the flap of her suit-case 
over there by the window, would be al- 
ready on its way to Mr. Carman. She 
wondered how it would make him feel — 1 
and if he would show it to Julie. On and 
on, hating herself for her thoughts, yet 
welcoming each new one that brought her 
misery ! 

Suddenly she sat up in bed with 
clenched hands. She was being a Not 
again, the worst kind of a Not. No longer 
ago than yesterday she had resolved that, 
since no other flowers could grow in the 
flame-charred places of her life, fireweed 
at least should blossom there. And she had 
been trying so hard, remembering her 
psychology, to fill her mind with other 


204 


TUMBLEWEED 


things. Was it utterly impossible — the 
great conquest of one’s self? Where was 
the wind that used to help her ? Had she 
utterly shut herself away from it ? 

As if in answer came a sudden sugges- 
tion from which she shrank at first, then 
turned, head up, to face. Why not burn 
the letter, so that the suffering should die 
with her ? Surely it would be the braver 
thing to do. All the romance of her na- 
ture cried out against destroying it, the 
one love-letter of her life. All the youth 
of her plead with her to open it and read 
it, to press its barbed sentences closer that 
she might' suffer again, this suffering that 
was the suffering of the world. All the 
wisdom of her cried: 6 1 Burn it, burn it.” 
She wanted to burn it, oh, yes, but — A 
page from her psychology note-book with 
its familiar handwriting flashed an under- 
lined sentence into her consciousness. 

“To will and not to do is moral suicide . 

“Herbert Spencer.” 


TO THE EKD OF THE WOBLD 205 


She remembered the exaltation with 
which she had written it and how she had 
thought it would help. With a petulant 
little shrug of the shoulders she discarded 
it. Then came the memory of the beauti- 
ful mist garden with its birch trees and 
its rose-purple blossoms. This, at least, 
was not smugly didactic like Herbert 
Spencer. Yet it had the power to make 
Tumbleweed slip into her kimono and 
open her suit-case. 

With the letter tightly clasped in her 
hand, she made her way softly down the 
stairs and into the living-room duskily lit 
by the dying fire. 

“A bingo bird once nested her nest 

On the lissome bough of an I O Yew,” 

Tumbleweed repeated irrelevantly as she 
bent over the fire — 

“Hard by a burrow that was possessed 
By a drear and dismal doodledoo.” 


206 


TUMBLEWEED 


Billy entered the room just in time to 
catch the last whispered word. 4 4 My God, ’ ’ 
he said to himself, instinctively drawing 
back into the shadows. As he watched 
Tumbleweed kneeling there beside the 
fire, wrapped about in the dull, mysterious 
green of her kimono, her thick braid shin- 
ing in the firelight, her face tense and 
white and her lips moving in the silly 
rhyme of which he could catch only a word 
now and then, the conviction grew on 
Billy that Chubby’s surmise was correct. 

“Eftsoons this doodledoo espied 
The blithe and beautiful bingo bird, ’ ’ 

the trembling lips went on as Tumble- 
weed’s nervous fingers tore the letter into 
shreds and dropped them one by one on 
the reddest embers. 

Billy could stand it no longer. Without 
stopping to think that he might frighten 
her he stepped toward.the fireplace. 

“Wee,” he said beseechingly, “don’t 



1 umbleweed tore the letter into shreds and dropped them on the reddest embers 











































































































TO THE ENT) OF THE WORLD 207 


talk like that — oh, what are you doing? 
What’s the matter ?” 

Tumbleweed pinched the toe of her 
slipper hard, to keep back the frightened 
tears his sudden appearance started. Then 
she looked up at him with a smile. 

“ Planting fireweed, Billy,” she an- 
swered simply. It did not occur to her 
that he would not understand. 

“Planting fireweed.” He echoed the 
words blankly. With growing horror on 
his face he remembered the curly thoughts 
and the doodledoo. She was strangely like 
Ophelia kneeling thus and talking sweetly 
about flowers. He w T atched her in fasci- 
nated silence; even her sudden laughter 
did not reassure him. 

“Come, Wee, you’re not well,” he said 
gravely. “You’d better go up-stairs.” 

But Tumbleweed, her hands clasped 
about her knees, was rocking back and 
forth in uncontrollable laughter. 

“Billy,” she gasped at last, “stop look- 
ing at me like that or I shall die! I’m not 


208 


TUMBLEWEED 


crazy ; honest, I’m not ! I just had a sud- 
den inspiration to burn a letter I ought 
never to have written. And the poem — 
I was saying that to keep my mind off 
things and bolster up my courage. It’s so 
silly, the whole thing — you standing there 
scared to death, while I perform Eugene 
Field’s Dismal Dole of the Doodledoo in 
my kimono over the fire at twelve-thirty.” 
She blew at the charred paper and rose to 
go, exhausted with her laughter. 

Billy was laughing, too; he was im- 
mensely relieved about the doodledoo. But 
there was still the curly thoughts to be ex- 
plained and the planting of the fireweed. 
Despite her gaiety that seemed like the 
Wee of old, she looked very strange to 
Billy. With a man’s queer lack of reason- 
ing, he did not realize that the trailing 
green robe and the hanging hair made any 
difference. But he saw that she was 
weary with a child’s drooping weariness. 
The hour under the stars had made a man 
of Billy. His new dignity crushed Turn- 


TO THE END OP THE WORLD 209 


bleweed’s objection that she ought not to 
stay there to talk to him like that. 

“You’ve got to tell me what’s the mat- 
ter, Wee, ” he said sternly. 4 4 What do you 
mean by ‘planting fireweed’?” 

She clasped her hands in front of her 
like a frightened child. 

“Don’t make it — any harder than it is 
now, Billy, ’ ’ she begged. Then, compelled 
by his eyes, she went on. “I — I — sinned 
a great sin, Billy — that left my heart dead 
black, charred like the woods out there. 
I — I didn’t think anything cool and fresh 
and pure — like the wind — could ever 
touch it again. And then — you showed me 
the mist garden where the fireweed, 
sprung from the seeds the wind brought, 
bloomed. And — I hoped — that if I took 
the seeds the wind brought, maybe, some 
day my life might be — like that. But one 
must forget, utterly forget the heat of the 
fire before the flowers can bloom. That’s 
why I’ve been learning these silly poems — 
that’s why I sang when it was hard — that’s 


210 


TUMBLEWEED 


why I burned the letter — to fill up my 
mind and crowd out — the fire.” She 
paused, trembling from the effort her 
words had cost. Then she put her hand on 
his arm. 

“ Please let me go now, Billy,” she 
begged. “ Perhaps you don’t understand, 
but honestly, I talked the straightest I 
could.” 

Of course, he didn’t understand. What 
practical man ever did understand the po- 
etic fastnesses of a woman’s heart? Even 
the ghost of Herbert Spencer, peeping, ex- 
ultant, from behind his remembered line, 
must have been puzzled. And Billy was 
no philosopher. But he had something 
better than understanding to offer Wee. 
He had love. 

He did not touch her as she stood so 
close to him, so young, so adorable in her 
grave confession. He longed so to com- 
fort her. Simple-hearted, he offered her 
the only comfort he knew. His voice, 


TO THE END OF THE WORLD 211 


when lie spoke, sounded to liim as if it 
came from a great distance. 

“ Wee, ’ ’ he said slowly, 4 4 it doesn ’t make 
the slightest difference what you’ve done 
— or what you intend to do. To the end of 
the world, I love you.” 

The little dreamer of love, suddenly con- 
fronted with its reality, did not recog- 
nize it. 

44 Thank you, Billy,” she said, as simply 
as if he had given her a flower. “I’ve 
never needed the love of people so much 
before. You and mother and Uncle Joe 
must always love me, hard.” 

“But, Wee,” Billy tried to explain, 
though the childlikeness of her made it 
very hard. “You don’t understand. I 
love you more than I love any one else in 
all the world. I want to take care of you 
always.” 

Still he did not touch her. Tumble- 
weed was suddenly very grateful. 

4 4 You always have taken care of me, 


212 


TUMBLEWEED 


Billy,’ ’ she answered quietly. “But if 
you mean anything more” — the queer 
frozen note he hated crept into her voice 
— “I’m all through with that. I couldn’t 
stand any more — it — it tires me so. I’m 
sorry, Billy,”- — as she saw the pain on his 
face — “but I just haven’t anything left to 
give, you see.” 

It was he who was the child now in need 
of explanation, and she was very patient 
but very firm. She did not take his love 
very seriously. She hardly thought of his 
sorrow at all, save to wonder, a little bit- 
terly, why one always wanted the very 
thing one couldn’t have. 

Just before she went to sleep she cud- 
dled her pillow into a soft ball between 
her arms. “Life certainly is queer,” she 
confided to its white depths ; then, with a 
little giggle — “ think of a proposal — in a 
kimono.” 

Perhaps she would not have slept with 
such a peaceful sense of well-being had she 
known the forces that were gathering 


TO THE END OF THE WORLD 213 

against her decision. Billy wanted Tum- 
bleweed. TJnder the stars be was mak- 
ing allies of all those voices of the out-of- 
doors that spoke so poignantly to her. 

The next morning after breakfast he 
asked her to ride over with him to say 
good-by to Mr. and Mrs. Enoch. While 
she was dressing he delivered his invita- 
tion in no uncertain terms to the rest of 
the party. 

“I don’t suppose any of you would care 
to ride over to the farm with us this morn- 
ing, would you?” he asked. Nothing but 
a refusal was possible after such a ques- 
tion. Chubby, with her native simplicity, 
started to accept but a nudge from Kay 
cut her short, and muttering something 
about some letters, she slipped out of the 
room to giggle over it with Ted. 

So Billy and Tumbleweed set out alone. 
Half-way along the road there was the 
ominous clang that proclaims a shed shoe, 
and Tumbleweed’s horse began to save 
one foot. 


214 


TUMBLEWEED 


“You silly old tiling,” slie said scold- 
ingly, as she bent a disapproving look on 
the eye he rolled back at her — “if you had 
to lose something, why couldn’t you lose a 
tooth or your tail, anything but a shoe?” 

“Never mind, Wee,” Billy answered, as 
he handed her the shoe he had gone back 
to pick up. “We can hang it over the 
door for good luck and this’ll give me a 
chance to show you Keeler, the funny old 
town I was telling you about. It’s only 
half a mile away and we can find a black- 
smith there.” 

They rode very slowly. Tumbleweed 
spoke in surprise after a moment. “I be- 
lieve I like this gait, for once,” she said, 
“usually we tear so I don’t have time to 
say ‘ Howdy’ to every single tree. Don’t 
you ’magine they lifoe to be noticed?” 

“That reminds me of something,” Billy 
answered, searching through his pockets 
till he found a little much-creased slip of 
paper. “It’s a quotation I ran across last 
winter and saved for you. I never thought 


TO THE END OE THE WORLD 215 


to tell you about it till last night. 
I thought you’d like it.” 

Tumbleweed reached eagerly for it. It 
is so fascinating to try to fathom why 
words (public property which all may 
use) have the power of suggesting you . 
In the heavy masculine handwriting she 
read: 

“ There’s night and day, brother, both 
sweet things ; sun, moon, and stars, 
brother, all sweet things; there’s likewise 
a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, 
brother ; who would wish to die ? 

u Jasper Petulengro.” 

“ Billy,” Tumbleweed spoke slowly, 
with the glad mystery he remembered of 
old — “I think that’s the very loveliest 
thing I ever heard in all my life.” 

“I liked it, too,” he said nonchalantly, 
a little embarrassed, after the habit of 
men, by her superlatives. 

“I’m sinking it down in my heart,” she 
continued after a moment. They both 


216 


TUMBLEWEED 


laughed; it was the expression they had 
used for memorizing years before. ‘ ‘ Now 
tell me about Mr. Petulengro,” she begged. 

“Mr. Petulengro,” Billy laughed, “I 
don’t know much about him but I’ll war- 
rant he wasn’t called Mr. very many times. 
About all I know is that he was some 
gipsy fellow and that his name means 
‘Lord of the Horseshoe.’ ” 

Tumbleweed interrupted him by clap- 
ping her hands. “Fittinger and fit- 
tinger,” she said gaily, as she slipped the 
horseshoe like a bracelet high up on her 
arm. Then, with the quick change that al- 
ways left Billy gasping, she said pen- 
sively: “Wouldn’t it be fun if life were 
like that — night and day and sun, moon 
and stars — and a wind on the heath — if 
one could just go a-gipsying through it?” 

“Why, I think it is, Wee, don’t you?” 
Billy asked in the simplicity of his inex- 
perience. “That and a little work and a 
few fires — and folks, thrown in.” 

The clean boyishness- of him made its 


TO THE END OF THE WORLD 217 


appeal to Tumbleweed, but sbe shook her 
head. 

“It is for you, Billy,” she answered. 
“But for most people there ’re more 
thoughts of money or parties or books — 
or just things , than night or day, sun, 
moon, or stars — or wind. I’d love to go 
gipsying myself.” 

“I’d love to take you some day, Wee; 
will you go?” 

She flushed at the eagerness of the ques- 
tion and, as they entered, the town, began 
to talk of other things. She wondered if 
life with Billy, could she have accepted his 
love, would have been a gipsy journey. 

He left her at the blacksmith’s shop 
among the queer huddled heaps of iron 
and the strong pungent smell that made 
Tumbleweed feel as if she were in the 
presence of prehistoric skeletons. Such 
a lot of “junk,” she thought to herself as 
she stood in the open doorway watching 
the leather-aproned figure bent over the 
obediently lifted hoof. The glowing iron 


21H 


TUMBLEWEED 


fascinated her. When the shoe was on she 
amused the blacksmith by her eager ig- 
norant questions. Business was slack, so 
he took her old horseshoe, heated it to a 
white heat, and twisted it into a dozen dif- 
ferent shapes before her wondering eyes. 
At last he made two hearts out of it, linked 
them and let the iron cool. 

“ You’d have a hard time to break away 
from her now,” he said significantly, as 
Billy came in. Billy laughed, but Tumble- 
weed turned away. She never could grow 
accustomed to the odd freedom of country 
chaffing. But she kept the two linked 
hearts. 

“ What have you got in that big bundle, 
Billy?” she asked after a moment. * 6 Are 
you taking something out for Mr. Enoch ? ’ ’ 

But Billy smiled mysteriously at her 
and refused to answer. 

“Well, if you won’t tell,” Tumbleweed 
announced, her curiosity aroused, “I’m 
going to look with my fingers like I used 
to at my Christmas stocking. Here, let me 


TO THE END OF THE WORLD 219 


feel it! Why, Billy, it’s soft and hard 
and round and flat. Oh, I know, lots of 
different things ! Oh, you mean, mean old 
secreter !” 

Billy let her guess and guess, but he 
kept a sharp eye on the surrounding coun- 
try as they rode. At last when he found 
a clump of firs that had attained growth 
enough to cast a shade, and saw, by a 
lushly green line across the country that 
there must be water near, he turned the 
horses from the road. 

“I promised to take you gipsying, 
Wee,” he explained, “and it was so late I 
thought we’d better not arrive at the farm 
just in time for dinner. So I went forag- 
ing.” He pointed significantly to the 
package. 

Tumbleweed was thrilled as she 
watched Billy make the “really, truly 
gipsy fire.” It was fun to open the big 
surprise package, and find in it the things 
Billy had chosen — great thick buns with 
ham between them, raw potatoes and ba- 


220 


TUMBLEWEED 


con for cooking over the fire, a shining new 
tin pail with packages of sugar and coffee 
cuddled brownly inside, on top of a little 
can of condensed milk. Billy must have 
done this before, Tumbleweed teased, to 
he so proficient and far-sighted. With the 
ferocious appetites born of their long ride, 
they had eaten everything else before the 
potatoes, sooty and none too soft, were 
raked out from the embers. Tumbleweed 
held hers in a leaf and ate it with the tin 
spoon that had stirred her coffee. As she 
dug patiently away at it, she turned to 
Billy with a smile. 

“It’s been a beautiful, beautiful gipsy- 
ing, and I can’t thank you enough for it,” 
she said. “But some day I want to follow 
the sun till it goes down and watch the 
night fall — do it all as the gipsies do — * 
with the fire making a red place in the 
dark and a great kettle bubbling full of 
things and a smell of burned leaves and a 
tent and — the stars.” 

Billy turned away from the sweet temp- 


TO THE END OF THE WORLD 221 


tation of her. * i Some day, if you will, 
we’ll do it that way, Wee,” he said very 
quietly. Then he waited. 

“Well,” Tumbleweed responded after 
a moment, nonchalantly dropping her po- 
tato skin into the fire, “ 6 there’s night and 
day, brother, both sweet things ; sun, moon, 
and stars, brother, all sweet things ; there’s 
likewise a wind on the heath.’ ” 

The visit at the farm and the ride home 
was their last glimpse of each other alone. 
As Billy stood the next morning watching 
the train that was bearing his guests away, 
Tumbleweed looked out of the window. 
“I’m not going to forget Jasper Petu- 
lengro,” was all that she said, but it com- 
forted Billy — somewhat. 










PART THREE 

WIND 

“The lands of the sun expand the soul.” 

—Old Proverb. 






























































'i !» 

















f 

















CHAPTER XIII 


THE LITTLE YELLOW BOOK 

“I feel just like the rubber balls we 
used to play with,” Tumbleweed wrote 
to Billy; “I hit home only to bounce away 
again.” 

The letter came from Seacrest in south- 
ern California, and Tumbleweed ex- 
plained that, since the house-party, her 
mother’s illness had made it necessary for 
them to leave home and find some place on 
the Pacific Coast to rest. Her descriptions 
of California were characteristic. 

“The palm trees, Billy, with their queer 
spreading leaves and pineapple stems seem 
always to be hiding behind them a heathen, 
like the pictures in the old Sunday-school 
missionary books. It ’s very disappointing 
to have only a respectable person in a New 
225 


220 


TUMBLEWEED. 


T ork suit walk out from behind. I ’m hop- 
ing for an adventure yet; there’s such an 
exotic atmosphere that one’s sure to step 
into something.” 

For the first few days, however, she 
didn’t step into anything but sand. It 
takes some time to grow accustomed to the 
brilliant blue of the sky, the odd Spanish 
names, the profusion of strange flowers 
springing out of the sand, the wonderful 
views of misty mountains with vineyards, 
orchards and rose-smothered bunglows. 

One afternoon Tumbleweed started 
out for a walk by herself. She slipped 
some paper and her fountain-pen into the 
pocket of her skirt. 

“I’m going to find a bit of woods to 
write letters in if I have to walk from here 
home to do it, mother,” she called. 

It seemed, indeed, a hopeless task. The 
shine of the world irritated Tumbleweed. 
All the blue seemed to have been bleached 
from the white sky and the silver sea— 


THE LITTLE YELLOW BOOK 227 

even the white sand-dunes offered only a 
little glossy embroidery of yellow and pur- 
ple desert flowers. Tumbleweed was hot 
and lonesome. Also she was feeling that 
strange spell of the South against which 
every northerner is born to struggle. 

“ California,” she said petulantly, 
“ you’ve got too high a polish on your fin- 
ger nails — and you wear too much per- 
fume, and I don’t like you. You’re — 
you’re vulgar beautiful, that’s what you 
are, always dressing up so ’laborately 
much and then getting into the spotlight to 
flaunt your Spanish ancestors!” 

The sun shone on ; the waves broke with 
regularity on the shore out of their fur- 
nace of white heat beyond. California 
had received many an alien ; with the wis- 
dom of conscious power she seemed to 
smile at the rudeness of this girl who had 
lately come to her. 

Suddenly Tumbleweed lifted her head. 
Over there was the gleam of a white 
curved road, and the odor of oranges came 


228 


TUMBLEWEED 


to her. Oranges meant trees and trees 
meant shade. Tumbleweed quickened 
her steps across the sand. On the road two 
or three automobiles full of laughing 
crowds passed her. Then all was quiet. 
She climbed a hill with that vague antici- 
pation which hidden beyondness arouses. 
Nor was she disappointed! In the valley 
on the other side stood a ruined mission 
and beyond its deserted garden, pine trees, 
dwarfed and twisted, chased the sand- 
dunes almost into the sea. 

Woods — the first real woods she had 
seen in California! Tumbleweed ran 
down the hill. She forgot the letters to 
be answered. Like a pilgrim who has 
found his shrine she wandered through the 
dark shade and brilliant light, followed the 
trails of golden poppies, hunted pine 
cones, explored the old mission, pic- 
turesque enough with its adobe walls and 
red roof, but dead, stupid, compared with 
the living fascinations without. 

California had conquered Tumbleweed 


THE LITTLE YELLOW BOOK 229 

• — and Tumbleweed knew it. She laughed 
as she flung herself on her back, straight 
out, under the pines, and watched the 
bright sky with its new white clouds, soft- 
ened by the intervening pine branches. 
The languor of utter abandon to nature 
crept over her. How wonderful it would 
be to lie always, thus, in the glory of it all ! 
How speedily everything but a sense of 
well-being would desert you — what utter 
freedom from thoughts that had the power 
to hurt! She remembered Stevenson’s 
* ‘ apotheosis of stupidity. ’ 9 W ouldn ’t it be 
heavenly to be just callous, emotionally, 
like that ? 

Finally even such thoughts passed and 
she lay in that blissful thraldom which is 
more restful than any sleep. It seemed 
as if the clean silence of it all had pene- 
trated to the heart of her, was steeping her 
in space. Here, so close to the ground, so 
quiet, she became one with the blades of 
grass, the ants, the pine needles. To lie 
flat, thus, alone, is the most healing expe- 


230 


TUMBLEWEED 


rience that can come to a human being. 
Tumbleweed was recreated. 

Superbly; empty of mind, she put up a 
protesting hand when the sun poured its 
golden irritant into her eyes. But the flow 
continued. Slowly she sat up. Beyond 
the tree on the ground she saw square cor- 
ners, the sort that nothing native to the 
woods ever has. Idly she reached out hen 
hand and picked up a little yellow papen 
book. It must have lost its owner long 
ago — the cover was so weather-beaten she 
could not even read the title. 

With a sudden desire to watch the sea 
that was growing less silver and more blue 
as the afternoon wore on, Tumbleweed 
climbed a pine tree. The gnarled trunk 
and twisted branches helped her up. For 
a while she watched the limitless blue Pa- 
cific. Then she turned to the little yellow 
book. Maybe it was a queer old novel. She 
smiled as she read the title page; “The 
Practice of the Presence of God, by Broth- 
er Lawrence.” 


THE LITTLE YELLOW BOOK 231 


She turned the pages idly. The book 
had the fascination of half-obliterated 
words, the fascination of a censored maga- 
zine. A humorous fancy seized Tumble- 
weed that Pan had tried to stamp out the 
most powerful of Brother Lawrence’s 
words. Gradually the utter simplicity, the 
childlike charm of what she read, began 
really to interest Tumbleweed. She 
turned page after page ; the wind from the 
sea ruffled her hair ; those silent moments 
of late afternoon, the time when all real 
happenings occur, drew near on shining 
feet. Tumbleweed turned another page 
— “ those who have the gale of the Holy 
Spirit.” She read the words with diffi- 
culty; it had evidently been a struggle for 
Brother Lawrence’s message to remain 
legible. But it had done its work. The 
book dropped from Tumbleweed’s fingers 
to the pine needles below. 

“The gale of the Holy Spirit”! Like 
an angelus at evening the words came soft- 
ly to her from that monastery kitchen of 


232 


TUMBLEWEED, 


long ago. She had never understood the 
Holy Spirit. Even in late years it had 
been scarcely more comprehensible or less 
vague than the giant ghost of little-girl 
days, whom she had always seen in her 
imagination flapping white robes and 
blowing cloven tongues of fire, (red and 
forked) , on those nice fishermen in the up- 
per room. For the first time it occurred 
to Tumbleweed that it was an upper 
room, a high place, such as she loved. Then 
she remembered that the story said — 
“There was — a mighty rushing wind.” 
“The gale of the Holy Spirit.” So her 
wind, the wind she had known and loved, 
the wind that had swept everything im- 
pure from her life, the wind she had shun- 
ned all these weeks since the discovery of 
her Hotness — her wind was — the Holy 
Spirit! 

A great awe filled Tumbleweed’s heart. 
The woods were very still. One by one, 
slowly, the things that had been troubling 
her came to this high, wind-swept place to 


THE LITTLE YELLOW BOOK 233 


be solved. With a simple expectation she 
could not have explained, she waited. 
“The gale of the Holy Spirit”! The 
difference between Wind Persons and 
Hots — how could one tell ? Slowly she be- 
gan to see that uncertainty may be wisdom 
and not weakness. Erom her own expe- 
rience she knew that one could be both a 
Wind Person and a Hot. The Hots were 
the people who did not feel the “gale of 
the Holy Spirit.” The precariousness of 
it — this spirit life — was borne in on her. 
The spirit — and the flesh. For the first 
time she rebelled at the separation for she 
saw that they were indissolubly one. To 
keep one’s self — one’s body and mind and 
heart — always as a tumbleweed before the 
wind of the spirit — that was the only sure 
way of being a Wind Person. Slowly she 
realized that possibly it is good for a 
man to have had a vision of his own Hot- 
ness. Surely one could never be so arro- 
gant again. And it would make one under- 
stand the Nots better. The Hots, during 


234 


TUMBLEWEED 


those strange moments in the tree, were 
growing increasingly important to Tum- 
bleweed. A great pity for them, an under- 
standing, sharing pity, with no hint of 
patronage in it filled her. She lifted her 
face with a new reverence as the breeze 
fresh from the ocean reached her. The 
old gesture brought back the old song. 
How she loved it — not that she understood 
it, even now, but she loved it 1 

* 4 The wind bloweth, 

Where it listeth ; 

Ho man knoweth 
Whence it cometh, 

Whither it goeth.” 

The song used to end there, Tumble- 
weed thought, a little puzzled by her feel- 
ing that there was more. Then, all mixed 
up with the blowing candles and the robe 
the rector wore while he read the second 
lesson, came the words some one had added 
to the song : “So is every one that is born 


.THE LITTLE YELLOW BOOK 235 


of the Spirit” — “the gale of the Holy 
Spirit”! Back all paths led to Brother 
Lawrence’s words. Surely she had been 
“born of the Spirit.” She remembered 
her childish allegiance to the wind, how 
she had insisted upon being called Tumble- 
weed — how she had done strange hard 
things at the behest of her Father Wind. 
But — her thoughts came with the difficulty 
of a very great excitement — one must be 
born again — from above. Strangely pos- 
sible, strangely simple they seemed, these 
words that she had never understood. 

With cyclonic suddenness the great 
Choice was upon her. In a flash she re- 
alized with triumphant pain that she loved 
it, the wind, the Holy Spirit — loved it 
with all her heart and mind and soul and 
body. The exaltation, the wild glory she 
had felt as a child when, with arms out- 
stretched, hair blown, she had let the wind 
sweep her on, filled her. Would it be like 
that, deep in one’s heart, always, if one 
kept in “the gale of the Holy Spirit”? 


236 


TUMBLEWEED. 


Then, from a great distance, she looked 
back and remembered Mr. Carman. In- 
stinctively she knew that all that would 
have to go — all of it, even the determina- 
tion never to love again, never to marry. 
The wind bloweth where it listeth; no 
tumbleweed chooses its own path. The 
struggle that had preceded the burning of 
the letter, the struggle that had threatened 
to obliterate Brother Lawrence’s words, 
the eternal struggle of the world, raged in 
the branches of the pine tree. The wind 
wasn’t always at gale, Tumbleweed 
thought ; there would be so many unbreeze- 
ful days when one would feel like a Not. 
But somewhere, always, over the surface 
of the earth, the wind was sweeping on its 
refreshing course. Knowing that, need it 
matter that one felt like a Not? Besides 
“ there is always a wind on a hilltop, a 
wind on the heath.” 

To be at one with the wind, “the Spirit 
of the Universe,” — to have one’s earth 
breath taken away by its larger breath, — 


THE LITTLE YELLOW BOOK 237 


mysteriously her mind began to penetrate 
the eternal symbol, to grope toward the 
eternal reality. With her eyes on the dis- 
tant restlessness of the blue waves she 
made her decision. The words were a sur- 
prise even to herself. 

“My Father — God,” she said. 

And then, suddenly, she was very tired. 
Long after she left the deserted mission 
garden, the wind blew. 


CHAPTER XIV 


SWEETHEART 

They had gone through it all, the cere- 
mony that made Mr. Carman and Julie 
man and wife. Tumbleweed and Billy 
had “ stood up with them,” as old Mr. 
Enoch said. Tumbleweed laughed at the 
odd expression, but she liked it. “It has a 
sort of shoulder-to-shoulder, lock-step, we- 
front-the- world sound,” she told Billy; 
“and it seems more appropriate than the 
sentimentality of ‘best man’ and ‘maid of 
honor.’ ” 

“No sentimentality about you, is there, 
Wee ? ” Billy asked a bit ruefully. He had 
not seen her, save these last hurried days, 
since the morning a year before when she 
had leaned from the train window to say 
good-by to him, and give him her message. 
238 


SWEETHEART 


239 


“You don’t look as if you had forgotten 
Jasper Petulengro,” he continued, looking 
admiringly at the rose-brown of her face. 

“Forgotten him!” Tumbleweed 
laughed. “All this long lonesome year at 
home I’ve been eating and drinking and 
sleeping, * night and day, sun, moon, and 
stars — and the wind on the heath.’ Why, 
really I’m scarcely a fit person for a wed- 
ding and an evening gown.” 

“You’re not exactly lily white, ” Billy 
admitted as she drew off her glove and 
held up her smooth brown arm for his 
inspection. 6 6 But I like it, ’ ’ he added with 
characteristic frankness. “You’re really 
lots prettier than you were last year, 
Wee.” 

Tumbleweed laughed. “You have a 
genius for doubtful compliments, Billy,” 
she answered lightly. But in her heart she 
was glad the year had made a difference. 
She remembered the old cry — “I want to 
be beautiful,” and how her mother had 
told her that the out-of-doors would help. 


240 


TUMBLEWEED 


She felt once more the interpenetration of 
spirit and flesh. The out-of-doors had be- 
come to her the fair garment of the per- 
sonality she loved. She was remembering, 
too, Chubby’s words of the afternoon. 

“It’s such heaven to have you happy, 
Wee,” she had said. “Do tell me what 
wonderful adventures you’ve been having 
to make you so jaunty.” 

“Outwardly, no wonderful adventures 
at all, Chubby,” Tumbleweed had 
answered; “but thinkwardly, a lot, adven- 
tures in faith and the out-of-doors. It 
takes a heap of both to get you through 
your first year out of school.” 

Tumbleweed was thinking of all this as 
she stood under the flowers drooping with 
the heat of the evening, as if they, too, 
knew that the bride in whose honor they 
had bloomed, had gone. Billy, watching 
her, felt the old longing to take her in his 
arms. This new Tumbleweed was doubly 
attractive; the old whimsicality he loved 
was blended with a new dignity, a deeper 


SWEETHEART 


241 


tenderness that awed Billy a little. It was 
so quiet and star-like. 

As a group of people passed on their 
way to the frappe table, Billy; began 
searching for his memorandum pad and 
pencil. Tumbleweed watched him curi- 
ously. 

“If you have a grain of compassion, 
Wee, tell me what color that lightish 
dress is.” 

“Mrs. Herman’s?” Wee asked in be- 
wilderment, following his frantic glance. 
“ It ’s champagne — but why ? ’ ’ 

“Excuse me,” Billy interrupted, “I’ll 
explain later. Please, Wee, describe every 
one’s clothes you can see.” 

“Mrs. Lewis — lavender charmeuse — * 
Miss Lewis-Nile green chiffon — Mrs. 
Goodrich — black satin with a lace over- 
skirt. Billy, this is positively weird. 
What are you doing ? Let me see ! ’ ’ 

She held out an imperious hand for the 
memorandum. He gave it to her reluctant- 
ly. The top line bore the words “Julie’s 


242 


TUMBLEWEED 


Wedding,” and the date. Just under it 
was Tumbleweed’s own name and after 
it the single word 4 4 Nasturtiums.” Tum- 
bleweed pointed a questioning finger 
at it. 

4 4 What do you mean, Billy?” she asked, 
mystified. 

4 4 Well, I asked several people to de- 
scribe what you were wearing to-nigbt and 
they all said different things — peach color 
and plum color — and I don’t know what 
all. Then Chubby said whenever you wore 
anything yellow you always reminded her 
of nasturtiums. She said you were so 
yidid and colorful, so entirely yourself, 
that you weren’t always dropping indis- 
criminate pink petals that might just as 
well have fallen from any other flower. 
r And somehow, that seemed to say more 
about how you looked than any of the 
rest.” 

4 4 Chubby is developing an imagination, ’ 9 
Tumbleweed laughed. 


SWEETHEART 


243 


She thought of those days at school 
when she had tried so hard to be herself — 
and had succeeded only in being a type. 
Eor the last year she hadn’t thought about 
being herself. 

“But tell me, Billy, why you are taking 
all this trouble about costumes. Are you 
going to start a shop or write society news ? 
.You know you really needn’t describe 
every one, only the celebrities. Oh, Billy, 
I told you Mrs. Herman was wearing 
champagne, not wine color. Imagine a 
matron of honor in wine color!” 

Billy took back the memorandum and 
corrected his mistake with a little sigh. 
“It’s very hard work,” he confessed. 
“But I promised to tell old Mrs. Eton what 
every one wore. She’s paralyzed, you 
know, and couldn’t come.” 

Suddenly the heat, the lights, the noise, 
the pungent odor of wilting ferns, op- 
pressed Tumbleweed like a toothache. 
Something in Billy’s words made her long 


244 


TUMBLEWEED 


for the out-of-doors. She could not have 
told what it was. With a little depreca- 
tory smile, she turned impulsively to him. 

“It's no use, Billy,’ ’ she said. “I can’t 
manage to be civilized for more than a 
few hours at a time. Can’t you take me 
home through the out-of-doors?” 

“I’ve been wondering if I dared with 
you all dressed up,” he confessed, smiling. 
“The car is here — and it’s so hot. We 
could go around by Eagle Lake and get 
cool.” 

Tumbleweed laid her hand excitedly on 
his arm. 

“Get me a duster or something, Billy, 
anything to cover my shiny partiness up — * 
and we’ll skip it — the rest of the reception, 
I mean. It’s time they were going home, 
anyhow.” 

While he was gone she stood by the open 
window. It was very still and very hot 
without — and thick black save for the 
spasmodic whiteness of the lightning. 
There is something a little terrifying al- 


SWEETHEAKT 


245 


ways in the quick changes of such a night, 
so silent, so mysterious, so pregnant with 
coming tumult. 

It is strange how a coat held for one 
brings a sense of protection. Tumble- 
weed snuggled into the duster Billy had 
brought and together they started for the 
door. 

“I’ll make it all right with mother,” 
Billy said, when she objected to leaving 
without good-bys. 

“.Well, it’s rude,” Tumbleweed said, 
“but — oh, Billy, we’ll have to hide.” She 
dragged him into the little closet under 
the stairs as a group of girls came down 
from above. “If they saw us we’d never 
get away,” she laughed. 

Tumbleweed was so close to Billy that 
her hair brushed his lips. It was very 
black in the little closet, save where a 
straight line of light from the crack in the 
door fell across the glowing color of Tum- 
bleweed ’s skirt that, at the sudden 
crouching, had heaped up about her like 


246 


TUMBLEWEED 


frosting on a cake. Their hearts were 
beating very; fast, as if this were some 
great adventure, and life depended on 
their remaining hidden. “Can’t you per- 
suade a spider to weave a web across the 
door?” Tumbleweed whispered. 

Then she shrank against him, her head 
bent into the curve of his arm as if the sud- 
den icy blast of lightning that came 
through the little window had struck her. 
It seemed as if the trees and houses and 
fences without, the worn spot in the paint 
on the window-frame, the coats, hanging 
soldier-like on the walls, the little neglected 
spider web in the corner, had all been 
awaiting this one opportunity to fling 
themselves with an insistence that hurt 
upon the eyes that looked startled into the 
artificial brilliance. 

Billy was surprised at Tumbleweed’s 
shrinking. It was unlike her. He did not 
realize what a severe strain the anticipa- 
tion of the wedding had been to her, nor 
the strange sense of unreality that filled 


SWEETHEABT 


247 


her when she found that her love for Mr. 
Carman had, indeed, been swept away. 

“ Afraid, Wee?” he asked. 6 6 Perhaps 
we’d better not go.” 

“I shan’t be afraid out-of-doors,” she 
said. “It’s just in here.” Then, with a 
return of her natural tone. “It’s as if the 
moving-picture machine in Heaven had 
gone wrong, somehow, to-night, isn’t it? 
Do you really suppose they have one for 
the baby angels?” she asked with that cu- 
rious intensity about trifles that was a part 
of her charm for Billy. 

“If they do you’ll be kept busy holding 
them during the performance,” he 
answered as he opened the door. 

Tumbleweed followed him apprecia- 
tively. It was fun to play with some one 
from whom you need not hide your 
thoughts, even your silly inconsequential 
ones. So many people she knew, cleverer 
people than Billy, would have been 
shocked at what she had said — or else 
would have thought her: brain a little 


248 TUMBLEWEED 

touched. But then, she reflected, one 
didn’t talk thoughts with them. 

The delicious sense of escape was on 
them as the roadster slipped silently and 
swiftly away from the festive house. 
* ‘ We ’re going to catch a breeze if there’s 
one in the world to-night,” Billy promised, 
— ‘ “and if we can’t catch one we’ll make 
one.” Bo still was it that even the motion 
of the car did not disarrange Tumble- 
weed’s hair. The trees on the roadside 
seemed to droop under the weight of heat. 
Tumbleweed folded her veil and put it 
into her pocket. Then she drew out some 
stick candy. 

“I knew you’d be hungry,” she ex- 
plained; “so I took it oft the table as I 
came by. But you’re not going to have 
one bite, Billy, unless you let me feed you, 
while you’re driving, the way Uncle Joe 
does. I just love to ! ” 

Both gloves followed the veil, and then 
Tumbleweed broke the sticks and popped 
them, bit by bit, into Billy’s mouth. 


SWEETHEART 


249 


“I feel just like a mother robin, drop- 
ping in a big fat worm,” she said deliber- 
ately. “Oh, Billy, if you’d only say 
‘cheep.’ ” 

“ Well, I won’t,” he answered laughing- 
ly. “And if you feed me so fast I might 
bite.” 

“But you can’t. Baby birds haven’t 
any teeth.” 

“See here, Wee, I’m no baby bird. 
That’s going too far.” 

Suddenly, out of the darkness ahead, 
two lights appeared, flashing from one side 
of the road to the other as if the hand at 
the wheel were none too steady. The car 
came on swiftly. With a muttered excla- 
mation Billy turned the roadster into the 
corn at the side of the road. In the instant 
of suspense the careening car shot past, 
just grazing the roadster. Then the quiet 
stretches sealed themselves like lengths 
of winding ribbon around the madness of 
it. Tumbleweed unclenched her hand 
and gave a little shiver. 


250 


TUMBLEWEED 


“There was a girl in it, Billy,” she said 
slowly — “a girl in a man’s arms — and they 
were drunk. Did you notice the silly voices 
and the awful smell?” 

“Yes.” Billy was examining the 
scraped fender. But his thoughts, too, 
were in the other car. If they had hurt 
Wee ! And then, looking at her as she sat, 
her arms thrown out over the wheel, her 
chin resting on it, her face white and mys- 
terious in the half-glow from the speed- 
ometer lamp below, he knew that they had 
hurt her. She was thinking about the girl, 
he reflected. But nothing like that should 
ever come near her, any nearer than to 
pass her, like this, on the road. She 
seemed very pure and very young to him 
as he climbed in beside her. She was 
touched with the dignity of vicarious suf- 
fering. 

Something of all this he tried to say to 
her, but she stopped him almost fiercely. 

“Don’t, Billy, — it hurts, — the differ- 
ence. Why should she be there, all awful — 


SWEETHEART 


251 


like that — when I’m here safe and happy 
— and clean — with you? I can’t under- 
stand it at all. It’s one of the eternal 
whys!” 

Billy had felt it, too, the great question. 
He suddenly remembered Maeterlinck’s 
Blue Bird , and that they had seen it to- 
gether. 

“It might have been like the play, 
Wee,” he said — “that we chose the right 
places to be born into. Only I wish there 
had been enough right places to go 
around.” 

“Billy,” she leaned forward to see his 
face — “I believe — yes — I really believe 
you’re a Wind Person, after all.” 

He did not answer at once and she sat 
quiet. Would she never come to the end 
of discoveries, she wondered. And then, 
realizing that to come to the end of dis- 
coveries is to come to the end of life, she 
was glad, glad with the exaltation of the 
hilltop, that a new discovery had proved 
her still alive. It was strange that she had 


252 


TUMBLEWEED 


never recognized Billy; as a Wind Person 
before. She had grown so used, through 
all their childhood, to thinking him a Not. 
But now her memory swept back, seizing 
one incident after another as flames catch 
and light successive tufts of dry grass and 
timber in a forest fire. She remembered 
the memorandum and the trouble he had 
taken to satisfy the curiosity of an old 
crippled woman, the gipsy picnic they had 
had, Billy’s plan to spare Mrs. Enoch the 
embarrassment of two unexpected guests, 
the mist garden, once when he asked her 
to wear “ something plain” to a dance, be- 
cause another girl’s trunk hadn’t come 
and she might feel more comfortable “if 
we weren’t dressed up either.” 

Tumbleweed had a sudden desire to 
put Billy to the test. Her eyes were danc- 
ing, but she forced a note of contempt into 
her voice. 

“After all,” she said, with a shrug of 
her shoulders; “why bother? That girl 
was probably a Not.” 


SWEETHEABT 


253 


“But nine chances out of ten it wasn’t 
her fault.” 

Tumbleweed rejoiced at the rebuke in 
his voice. She loved to be scolded ; it made 
her feel that after all there must be some- 
thing worth while in her that people took 
the trouble. 

“Do it some more,” she said in her 
smallest, most penitent, little-girl voice. 
Billy knew what she meant and he turned 
a little shamefacedly toward her. 

“I suppose you’ll think I’m a regular 
old parson, Wee,” he said simply; “but 
somehow, I don’t like to have you talk 
about Wind Persons and Nots as if — the 
quality — whatever it is you mean — were 
something one either did or didn’t possess, 
like money, for instance. It seems a bit 
snobbish. I heard a man talk once about 
spiritual snobbery — and I think it’s that. 
Now I’m done!” 

“Amen,” Tumbleweed mocked, a lit- 
tle catch in her voice. Then she laid a 
hand on his arm. 


25 i 


TUMBLEWEED 


“I do know what you mean, Billy,” she 
said. “And I did used to be a spiritual 
snob. But then, in California, in the top 
of a pine tree, I began to understand. And 
this is the way I figured it out — that being 
Nottish is probably just a stage really, the 
only danger is in its becoming permanent. 
Aaid there is in the world this thing, that 
we’ve called the wind, that Brother Law- 
rence calls the Holy Spirit, a separate 
thing, bigger — so much bigger — than any 
Wind Person.” She paused a moment. 
“Once people have felt it and are per- 
suaded of its existence, then the choice is 
theirs, whether to build about them a dark 
little hut and stay within, or to go forth 
into the fresh wonder of it all — and be 
blown — oh, anywhere, on the path the 
wind chooses. But all the Nots haven’t 
had a chance yet to feel the wind. An d 
I don’t know how they ever will — but they 
must!” For a moment Billy ’s hand closed 
over hers in a silent clasp of assent. 

It was very dark on the twisting road 


SWEETHEART 


255 


around the lake shore. Only a few things 
shone dully, the white of Tumbleweed’s 
throat where the top button of her duster 
was unfastened, Billy’s knuckled hand on 
the wheel. The lightning was growing 
more and more vivid. At the first roll of 
thunder, Tumbleweed’s tenseness relaxed. 

“I always feel better when the storm be- 
gins to make a fuss you can hear,” she 
said ; “it’s like a terribly angry person be- 
ginning to talk. You don’t feel half so 
ominously uncertain as when they’re all 
white and still.” 

As she spoke, the breeze they had been 
hunting sighed apprehensively through 
the trees, setting every leaf to dancing to 
a different tune. The next moment the 
trunks were bent almost double. Billy 
pulled the throttle up and the car leaped 
forward as if it, too, had felt the sudden 
force that shot from the puffed cloud. The 
wind raged around them. Billy settled 
himself to the difficult task of driving in 
the blinding, bewildering changes from 


256 


TUMBLEWEED 


light to darkness, avoiding the great 
branches that were flung across the road. 
Tumbleweed had a wonderful sense of 
being part of the storm. She had never 
driven so fast before ; the glorious mania 
of speed was upon her; intoxicated, she 
longed to fly faster, faster, on the wild 
ways of the wind. It didn’t matter at all 
that it was dangerous, that there were 
bodies, theirs and other people’s, that 
might suffer. She acknowledged the truth 
of it reluctantly in her mind. But what 
were bodies — when the whole black earth 
and the clouded sky, and beyond the 
clouds, the star-space, awaited the sweep- 
ing rush of the gray roadster ? 

And then, from above, the rain began to 
send long, cool, probing fingers into the 
hot swirling chaos below. The gray 
roadster stopped for a moment while Billy 
drew forth a waterproof robe and tucked 
it around behind Tumbleweed. He was 
none too soon, for a blade of lightnnig cut 
into the full bowl of the clouds above them. 


SWEETHEABT 


257 


The wind hurled the emptied rain like 
pointed icicles in their faces. Tumble- 
weed sprang to raise the wind-shield. 
When she sat down again the exaltation 
had left her, and as always when it had 
gone, she was very tired. Trembling at 
the fury of the storm, she looked at Billy, 
tense, strong, calm, behind the wheel. 
Then suddenly she slipped over on the 
seat nearer to him. In a momentary flash 
of lightning he saw her white face with 
its crown of streaming hair, the blue eyes 
very wide and frightened, the lips 
trembling. 

“ Please,’ ’ she gasped like a child about 
to be punished, — “ please, may I hold on 
to a bit of your duster — to feel ? It’s so — • 
lonesome over there !” 

Billy’s hand left the wheel ; his left arm 
shot out behind her, caught the robe, 
crushed her, wrapped in its folds, close to 
him, till the wet hair brushed his chin. He 
half expected her to resist, but she snug- 
gled up to him with a little sigh. She 


258 


TUMBLEWEED 


could see nothing but the sheeted rain, 
with the gleaming wheel in front of her, 
gripped by that strong brown hand. 
Peace — in the midst of this tumult ! She 
liked to listen, smiling, to the strong beat 
of Billy’s heart. It was trying to tell her 
something through the coat, she fancied, 
but she didn’t quite understand. 

Billy was steadily watching the road 
ahead. At last there was a clear spot for 
a few yards. It was enough. Almost 
fiercely he bent over the girl who lay with 
the calmness of a child in the shelter of his 
arm. “ Sweetheart,” he whispered, 
“ Sweetheart!” Then he kissed her wet 
parted lips. 


CHAPTER XV 


GIPSYING 

“Well, you needn’t scold quite so 
hard,” Tumbleweed said in a plaintive 
sleepy voice to the robin that swayed up 
and down on a branch outside her window, 
seeming to pour his heart out in maledic- 
tions at her. She turned one flushed cheek 
into the softness of the pillow again, but 
the bird continued. As she sat up slowly 
she remembered the storm of the night be- 
fore and looked out in surprise at the 
quiet, shining new day. 6 6 J ust as innocent 
as if it had never fussed and fumed and 
been angry in all its life,” she thought. 
Then she looked at the clock on her desk 
and sprang out of bed so suddenly that she 
frightened the robin. 

“Good-by and thank you,” she said 
259 


260 


TUMBLEWEED 


with a smile as she watched his startled 
flight. “If it hadn’t been for you, Mr. 
Bird, I’d have slept along till every one 
had handled the fresh new day and there 
wasn’t any bloom left.” 

She continued to talk to herself as she 
bathed and dressed, a habit she had 
learned long ago to keep her mind occu- 
pied. There was something she was not 
ready yet to think of, the something that 
had happened the last few moments in 
the car the night before, the something 
that had made her uncomfortable when 
Billy accepted her mother’s invitation to 
stay all night, the something that had made 
her slip away to bed while the others were 
still talking of the wedding, the something 
that had been hard to forget when she 
went to sleep. But that something was not 
to be thought of anywhere save on her 
own high hill. 

She laced up her sturdy brown boots 
quickly ; she tied a narrow ribbon around 
her hair that was fluffy and uncontrollable 


GIPSYING 


261 


from its drenching the night before : then 
she hesitated for a moment. On her early; 
morning walks she usually wore a khaki 
skirt and a middy blouse. To-day a linen 
dress hanging beside them looked very 
attractive. “ A middy is so — so kiddish — ,” 
Tumbleweed said, taking the linen dress 
from its hanger. Then she suddenly re- 
placed it, a trifle defiantly. “As if any 
one would see,” she said, but her cheeks 
were flushed as she bent over and chose a 
fresh blouse from her box, the prettiest 
one she had, with a blue collar that 
matched her eyes. Avoiding the mirror, 
she buckled the belt of her khaki skirt over 
it and, picking up her tie and loosely knot- 
ting its wide lengths of red silk around 
under her collar, left the room and went 
down-stairs. 

She cut across the meadows and chose 
the old deserted Indian trail that skirted 
the lake. It was much the longer way to 
her own high hill but Tumbleweed was not 
eager to arrive. She shrank from decision. 


262 


TUMBLEWEED 


The old trail was one of those mysterious 
paths that look like no path at all until 
you begin to follow them, and then seem 
to draw aside twisted branches and vine- 
grown bushes, making way before you and 
closing up behind. The intense happy 
peace of early morning came to Tumble- 
weed. The tender sunshine, green- 
filtered through the dense foliage above, 
fell softly about her. She loved the deli- 
cious wildness of it ; it seemed almost dese- 
cration to touch the green waving things 
on either side. 

!A.t last the trees began to thin, and she 
stepped out into the sunshine, where her 
own high hill rose, almost bald, against the 
sky. “Just like coming out of church,” 
Tumbleweed thought as she began the 
ascent. Though she knew every detail of 
the view it afforded — the lake below with 
its frame of bushes, the rolling blending 
greens and browns of the other side, with 
the little stream, silver-threading the low- 
lands to the west, — she felt a sense of ex- 


GIPSYING 


263 


pectaney. So many things may lurk over 
the brow of a hill! 

"When she reached the top it was just as 
she had expected, save where a few soft 
white clouds hugged themselves into merry 
little balls, bending over to catch sight of 
their reflections in the lake. She remem- 
bered how she had come here on a spring 
day, long ago, for the wind to make her 
beautiful — and how Billy had told her that 
she would marry a little boy. She won- 
dered about that marrying ! 

And as she stood there, dreamily smil- 
ing, Billy, a book in his hand, came 
through the bushes. The careful toilet 
was justified in the picture she made 
against the sky. 

“Good morning,” he said; “I thought 
perhaps I ? d find you here.” 

Tumbleweed smiled at him, the tumult 
in her heart hidden. “Beading so early, 
Billy?” she questioned. “What’s the 
book?” 

“Well, to tell the truth I haven’t been 


264 


TUMBLEWEED 


reading, Wee. But the book is Borrow ’s 
Lavengro, the one about our friend Jas- 
per, you know.” 

“ Oh, how nice! Read to me! It’s hours 
before breakfast!” Tumbleweed sat 
down. She was growing more and more 
afraid of this interview with Billy, but it 
had to be faced. She was unused to the 
feeling. 

4 4 There is one place IM like to read 
you,” Billy answered, sitting down beside 
her. As he turned the pages he, too, was 
thinking of the moment when he had 
kissed her. It took a very long time to find 
the place. Finally Billy spoke. 

“It’s a scene between Borrow and 
Isopel Berners, the girl who loved him,” 
he said with a note of restraint in his 
voice. * 6 He was camping out in Mumper ’s 
Dingle and she pitched her tent near his. 
Then he decided to teach her Armenian. 
This is his description of the last lesson.” 
He turned to Lavengro . 

“ 6 “Belle, I will now select for you to 


GIPSYING 


265 


conjugate the prettiest verb in Armenian 
* — here is the present tense, siriem, siries, 
sire, siriemk, sirek, sirie, — come on, Belle 
and say, siriem” — Belle hesitated. “Pray 
oblige me, Belle, and say siriem.” Belle 
still appeared to hesitate. “You must ad- 
mit, Belle, that it is much softer than 
hntaju.” “It is so,” said Belle, “and to 
oblige you I will say siriem. ” “ .Y ery well 
indeed, Belle,” said I. “No varabied or 
doctor could have pronounced it better; 
and now to show you how verbs act upon 
pronouns in Armenian I will say siriem 
zkiez. Please to repeat siriem zkiez.” 
“Siriem zkiez,” said Belle; “that last 
word is very hard to say.” “Sorry that 
you think so, Belle, ’ ’ said I. “Now please 
to say siria zio.” Belle did so. “Ex- 
ceedingly well,” said I. “Now say yerani 
the sirier zio.” “Yerani the sirier zio,” 
said Belle. ‘ ‘ Capital, ’ ’ said I ; “ you have 
now said — I love you — love me — ah, that 
you would love me.” ’ ” 

“ ‘ “And have I said all these things?” 


266 


TUMBLEWEED 


said Belle. “ Yes,” said I, “you have said 
them in Armenian.” “I would have said 
them in no language that I understood,” 
said Belle—/ ” 

Billy paused. He scarcely dared to look 
at Wee, but her eyes were turned away — 
and the fingers of one hand were rolling 
the end of the red silk tie into a little ball. 
Only a bird’s song broke the stillness till 
she turned to him, bravely, questioningly. 

“Wee — sweetheart!” he said once more. 

She shrank back, covering her face with 
her hands. Joy and fear and a sense of 
being swept irresistibly onward with a 
great rush filled her. If she could only 
catch her breath ! 

“I’m— I’m afraid, Billy,” she said 
simply. 

“But I love you, Wee ; and you love me. 
You have told me in a language you do not 
understand, like the girl in the story. 
Don’t you know it?” 

They sat very still after the sudden 
question. The air seemed to hang quiet 


GIPSYING 


267 


about them, curtaining off this moment 
from all the rest of their lives. At last 
he spoke. 

“Aren’t you ever going to answer me, 
Wee?” 

She turned toward him, smiling, 
flushed, radiant. 

“I’m trying to make — my heart live up 
to my name, Billy. To be just willing to 
be a tumbleweed before — the wind. And, 
I think, — maybe — your way is the way of 
the wind.” 

He took her hand that lay quiet on the 
grass. 

“I love you, Wee,” he answered again. 
“I don’t understand all the things you say 
and I can’t follow you into all your moods. 
But this great open airness we love in com- 
mon. Isn ’t that enough ? ’ ’ 

“A woman’s moods are just her play- 
houses, Billy,” Tumbleweed answered 
dreamily; “only big enough for one and 
she doesn’t want to be followed because she 
goes just to amuse herself and escape the 


■268 


TUMBLEWEED 


rest of the world. Most often she wants 
only to be left alone. That doesn’t 
matter.” 

‘ ‘Nothing matters sweetheart, but love. ’ ’ 

“Oh, yes, lots of things matter. And, 
Billy, don’t call me sweetheart ’cause I’ve 
got to think. Do you know that I’ve 
dreamed all my life of having some one 
call me sweetheart, not just — well, as a 
term of endearment, but — because they 
really thought it — that my heart was 
sweet. Did you mean that, Billy ? ’ ’ 

Tumbleweed blushed adorably and her 
question was low and shamefaced. She 
gasped at its sudden answer. 

‘ ‘ Billy — you musn ’t ! Every time I ask 
you a question you needn’t answer that 
way.” 

“You shouldn’t ask such questions then, 
sweetheart!” 

She shook her head at him. “The big- 
gest thing that has to be decided,” she 
said with the grave wisdom that always 
amused Billy, “is about the Nots.” 


GIPSYING 


269 


“What under heaven have the Nots got 
to do with this?” Billy; asked in startled 
surprise. 

“Well!” Tumbleweed was struggling 
under an embarrassment almost touched 
with anger. Why was it always so hard 
to make people understand ? 4 4 Billy, we ’re 
both Wind Persons,” she said slowly; 
4 4 and we know that the wind is absolutely 
inexplicable at times, but it’s never — ca- 
pricious — meaningless — and it seems to be 
trying to — well — reach the Nots. So — our 
— caring — must mean something; and I 
have been hoping it might mean something 
for the people who most need things, the 
Nots. Unless it means something it 
wouldn’t be justified — or fulfilled, do you 
see?” 

Billy was puzzled. 

“No, Wee, frankly, I don’t,” he con- 
fessed ruefully. 44 You don’t mean start a 
settlement or something do you?” 

Tumbleweed laughed, freely, joyously. 

4 4 Silly, ’ ’ she mocked ; 4 4 of course not. I 


270 


TUMBLEWEED 


had hoped it might be just gipsying, life, 
I mean, for a while ! I only mean, Billy, 
that if I were sure that we could keep just 
a few people from building the dark little 
hut — take our own friends once in a while 
where the wind blew — better together than 
alone — •” 

Slowly Billy began to understand. He 
was ashamed before the pure selflessness 
of her; the silence became unfathomable, 
holy. Over their clasped hands, he smiled 
at her. “ With God’s help, we will, sweet- 
heart !” he said. 

With a rapturous tightening of the hand 
that lay quiet in his, Tumbleweed 
pledged him her faith, with the repetition 
of his own words. There was delicious 
meaning for them both in the use of that 
small word, “we.” Then, her face full of 
the star-like beauty that awed Billy, she 
lifted her lips to give him his reward. 

With the sportsmanlike spirit of fair 
play that made them so amusing to the 


GIPSYING 


271 


older people that watched them, Tumble- 
weed and Billy divided the decisions in. 
regard to the wedding. Billy was to plan 
the honeymoon and he kept it a deliciously 
thrilling and mysterious secret from Wee, 
partly because he loved to listen to her 
wild guesses about it. 

Tumbleweed chose October for thq 
wedding and five o’clock for the time. To 
every protest she would answer only : “I 
know it’s soon, but I want the autumn of 
the year and the autumn of the day. Every 
beautiful thing that’s ever come to me has 
come at my beautiful, goldeny long- 
shadow time.” [And she had her way. 

It was very simple and very beautiful, 
an outdoor wedding — (neither Tumble- 
weed nor Billy could have found the cour- 
age to face the ceremony indoors) — with! 
only Chubby and Ted as very serious 
young attendants — and the whole world 
“red and gold glory-filled” as Tumble- 
weed said, to do them honor. !As a 
consequence of her summer out-of-doors, 


'272 


TUMBLEWEED 


and the short engagement that had left 
small time for functions, Tumbleweed 
was as fresh as a flower when she 
sat with Billy; on the back platform of the 
.observation car, watching the home lights 
disappear down the speeding track. 

In a moment when they were alone, she 
whispered roguishly to Billy, “I don’t 
feel a bit married.” 

“You don’t look it, either,” he an- 
swered, laughing. 

‘ ‘ Billy, will you promise me one thing ? ’ ’ 
[She looked up at him, very serious. 

“Now, sweetheart, we agreed not to 
mention the Nots, to-day.” 

Tumbleweed dimpled. “I haven’t and 
you have,” she exulted. “But what I 
wanted you to promise was that you’d tell 
me if I ever wore a married hat. I hate 
married hats!” 

They sat on, happy, in the twilight. It 
was too cool for most of the passengers, so 
they had the world to themselves with only 
the brightness behind to remind them of 


GIPSYING 


273 


other travelers. After a while Tumble- 
weed looked at her watch. 

“I’m hungry,” she said, with the simple 
directness of a child. “Do you ’spose the 
diner’s still on? Oh, Billy, you mean, 
mean old secreter, what are you going 
to do?” 

Billy only smiled wisely, but he made no 
effort to get her anything to eat. 

“Billy, are you trying to starve me into 
submission?” she asked later when they 
had gone back into the train. “ Oh, are we 
going to get off?” as he began to gather 
the bags. 

“This is certainly the queerest adven- 
ture I ever had,” she mused, when Billy 
left her for a moment on the unknown, 
little station platform as the train 
twinkled away into the darkness. Then 
she gave a cry of delight as the gray road- 
ster, marvelously fitted with a new trunk 
and mysterious bulges like a ship about to 
sail strange waters, drew up beside her. 
The dim lights of the unknown little town 


274 


TUMBLEWEED 


sputtered and went out behind their backs. 
Only “the starry solitudes” looked down 
on the gray roadster. The cool pungency 
of an October night, tinged with the odor 
of burning leaves, sweet with mature 
growth, came with invigorating freshness 
at the end of the momentous day. Tumble- 
weed drew a deep breath of content, slip- 
ing over nearer Billy. 

“I — I ? m lonesome again,” she explained 
happily, but there wasn’t a hint of lone- 
liness in her voice. Lind, as before, his 
arm drew her close. 

“Sweetheart, I promised once to take 
you gipsying in the night if you would go. 
Whenever you say, we’ll stop and build 
our fire and put up our tent.” 

“Oh, Billy, can we have a kettle with all 
kinds of things, bubbling?” 

“All kinds of things are in the packages 
behind you, Wee.” 

. “It’s the loveliest adventure in all the 
world!” She thanked him with her shin- 
ing eyes. “A-gipsying, with our fire 


GIPSYING 


275 


making a red spot in the dark night and — 
you. Billy, ‘There’s night and day, both 
sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, all 
sweet things. There’s likewise a wind on 
the heath. Life is very sweet’- — Husband ! 
‘.Who would wish to die V ” 

Not the two in the roadster, surely. 
Above their heads, from the distant spaces, 
the stars grew angry with the trees for 
shutting out the sight of that perfect ride, 
and leaned forward, twinkling, to watch on 
the clear spaces of the road. About them 
the wind blew ! 


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